Random Image Generator

invidious has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am writing a random image generator and I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I run the file and it obviously outputs the picture to command prompt but when I try and access the file from <IMG SRC> it will not display the picture. I am quite new at perl itself so please bare with me.
Here is the script:

#! /usr/bin/perl

$urldir = "http://jason.yellowsnow.net/images/";

$dir = ".";

opendir(DIR,$dir) || die "Unable to open $urldir: $!";
@files = grep { /\.(?:jpg)$/i } readdir DIR;

srand (time ^ $$);
$file = rand(@files);

open(IMG,$files[$file]) or die "Unable to open $files[$file]: $!";
print "Content-type: image/jpg\n\n";
{
    print <IMG>;
}
close IMG;

closedir DIR;
[download]

Thanks in advance for your guys' help.

Comment on Random Image Generator Download Code

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Re: Random Image Generator by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Oct 13, 2003 at 17:27 UTC
Check your webserver logs, or if you can't access them put `use CGI::Carp 'fatalsToBrowser';` at the top of your script. (Remember to remove the `fatalsToBrowser` bit when the script is on the live server!) For me, when I test run this code, I get your die's message that the directory could not be opened. Be aware that when called from the webserver, the current working directory of the script is not necessarily the directory the script resides in. Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Random Image Generator by CombatSquirrel (Hermit) on Oct 13, 2003 at 17:31 UTC
You might want to set `binmode STDOUT;` at the beginning of your script, as you are printing a binary file (the image) to STDOUT. ;-) Also, the non-capturing parens (`(?:)`) in your RegEx don't do anything; you might as well remove them. Hope this helped. CombatSquirrel. Entropy is the tendency of everything going to hell.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Random Image Generator by bl0rf (Pilgrim) on Oct 15, 2003 at 22:47 UTC
Thank you for your advice CombatSquirrel! Its the same thing that needed to be done for a script I'm writing. Live well, eat Perl. My site	[reply]
Re: Random Image Generator by blokhead (Monsignor) on Oct 13, 2003 at 17:36 UTC
`{ print <IMG>; }` [download] will only read from IMG until the first "\n". You can't assume the jpeg files don't include this byte. Try changing it to: `{ local $/; print <IMG>; }` [download] This will read in all of IMG and print it. blokhead (200th post)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Random Image Generator by Thelonius (Priest) on Oct 13, 2003 at 19:13 UTC
Actually `print <IMG>;` will print the whole file. The "print" provides a list context and readline in a list context reads the whole file.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Random Image Generator by Cody Pendant (Prior) on Oct 13, 2003 at 22:03 UTC
when I try and access the file from <IMG SRC> it will not display the picture Call me crazy but why not just print out `<img src="/path/to/$file">` [download] and let the browser worry about opening your images for you? `($_='kkvvttuubbooppuuiiffssqqffssmmiibbddllffss') =~y~b-v~a-z~s; print` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Random Image Generator by TVSET (Chaplain) on Oct 13, 2003 at 17:51 UTC
Additionally to all the above suggestions, you should check that directory that you expect script to run in is actually the one you exptected: `$dir = "."; opendir(DIR,$dir) \|\| die "Unable to open $urldir: $!";` [download] Leonid Mamtchenkov aka TVSET	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Random Image Generator by pg (Canon) on Oct 13, 2003 at 18:03 UTC
Try to do this simple testing, and help you to narrow down the problem: Write the image to a file, then use IE or whatever you have to open the image file as a local file (c: something something), not over network. If the image does not show up, then it has a bad format, blokhead had a very good guess already; If the image does show up, then the problem would be the way you form your http or html.	[reply]