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

Is there a way of doing such a thing. I have a list of URLS that I print using a format, however when one contains an @ (eg. user:pass@site.domain) the script fails. Is there a way of escaping the @ or ^ characters so that it treats them as normal characters?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: Escaping an @ or a ^ in a format
by setantae (Scribe) on Feb 08, 2000 at 07:41 UTC
    This seems to work OK:
    [setantae@archaia setantae]$ cat barf
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
$normal = "text here";
$at = "setantae\@eidosnet.co.uk";
$caret = "something^with a caret in";
write STDOUT;
format STDOUT =
@<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<
+<<<
$at, $caret, $normal
.
[setantae@archaia setantae]$ ./barf
setantae@eidosnet.co.uk        something^with a caret in        text h
+ere

    [download]
    You need to escape the @ (which -w would have told you (yeah, yeah, no use strict;, but I'm trying to keep it short)).
    setantae@eidosnet.co.uk|setantae|http://www.setantae.uklinux.net
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Escaping an @ or a ^ in a format
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 09, 2000 at 17:06 UTC
    I actually thought of using the code that you suggested: 
    format Ident =
I have an @ here.
         "@"
.

    [download]
    But then I decided to just print the URLS in a format field anyways (even though a format is not needed as the urls will be within td tags) I was just interested that when invoking a format there seems to be no way of escaping the @ or ^ symbols apart from using a format. Of course what I wrote is not really the purpose of using a format.. but oh well..
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[d/l]
RE: Escaping an @ or a ^ in a format
by jamieamieamily (Initiate) on Feb 08, 2000 at 07:54 UTC
    Sory, I should have included more information. What I am wanting to do is something along the lines of this: #!/usr/bin/perl -w $normal = "text here"; $at = "setantae\@eidosnet.co.uk"; $caret = "something^with a caret in"; write STDOUT; format STDOUT = login1 is jamie@site1.com login2 is jamie@site2.com this is a caret: ^ more text here @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<< $at, $caret, $normal . The lines containing the @ and the ^ are printed as a header.
[reply]
      Hmm, any chance you could rewrite this using CODE tags - it'll help
      Check out Perl Monk procedures for more info.
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Re: Escaping an @ or a ^ in a format
by jamieamieamily (Initiate) on Feb 08, 2000 at 08:07 UTC
    With tags: 
    #!/usr/bin/perl -w 
$normal = "text here"; 
$at = "setantae\@eidosnet.co.uk"; 
$caret = "something^with a caret in"; 
write STDOUT; 
format STDOUT = 
login1 is jamie@site1.com 
login2 is jamie@site2.com 
this is a caret: ^ 
more text here 
@<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @<<<<<<<< 
$at, $caret, $normal
[reply]
      Hmm, not quite sure what you're trying to do - fancy posting the code you have?
[reply]
Re: Escaping an @ or a ^ in a format
by btrott (Parson) on Feb 08, 2000 at 23:04 UTC
    Apparently (according to perlform), you can escape a "^" or a "@" like this: 
    format Ident =
I have an @ here.
        "@"
.

    [download]
    That said, though, I'm not sure that you want to be writing normal (non-formatted data) into the format.

    According to perlform, one format line should contain either: a comment; a "picture" line describing a format; an argument line giving the values to plug into the previous picture line.

    So perhaps you should just use print statements, or investigate the use of format headers, instead?

[reply]
[d/l]
      A followup: when I wrote to use print statements "instead", I meant instead of the non-formatted data (like header information); you can alternate print and write statements, I believe.
[reply]
Re: Escaping an @ or a ^ in a format
by jamieamieamily (Initiate) on Feb 08, 2000 at 08:59 UTC
    Basically I have written two perl modules that print a report presenting urls and the number of hits per url. The first is a text based format, the second prints html. As i used td tags in the html version i did not need to create fields for the url strings, which is when i ran into this problem. As the @ in the url string is treated as text when an eval is done it expects input. Here is a cut down version: 
    #!/usr/bin/perl

%hash = qw(site.com 10 jamie@site.com:site1.com 4 user@hots:foo.bar 20
+);

eval print_url_info(\%hash,10,"STDOUT");
write;
exit 0;


sub print_url_info
{
    my ($url_data,
        $num_urls,
        $fh)=@_;

    
    my ($format)="",
       ($header)="$num_urls Most Popular URLs :",
       ($local_debug)=$debug,
       ($index)=0;


    ##############
    # Geneate a string to be eval'd containing the most popular x urls
+ for this user


    $format = "format $fh =\n";
    $format = $format . "<!--- Start User Top URLS Section -->\n";

    $format = $format . "<font size=3><u>$header</u></font><br><br>\n"
+;

    
    $format = $format . "<table border=0>\n    <tr>\n";
    $format = $format . "        <th align=left>URL</th>\n";
    $format = $format . "        <th width=10></th>\n";
    $format = $format . "        <th align=left>Num of Hits</th>\n    
+</tr>\n";


    ##############
    # Print the urls in descending order

    $index=0;
    foreach (reverse 
         sort { ${$url_data}{$a} <=> ${$url_data}{$b} } 
         keys %{$url_data} )
    {
        $format = $format . "    <tr>\n";
        $format = $format . "        <td align=left>$_</td>\n";
        $format = $format . "        <td align=right> ${$url_data}{$_}
+ </td>\n    </tr>\n";

        ( ++$index == $num_urls ) && last;
    }

    $format = $format . "</table>\n<br>\n";

    $format = $format . "<!--- End User Top URLS Section -->\n";

    $format = $format . "\n.\n";

    return $format;

}

    [download]
    I am now using place holders to print the URLs which is ultimately preferrable however I would still like to find out if an @ or a ^ can be treated and printed as normal text in a format.
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Escaping an @ or a ^ in a format
by jamieamieamily (Initiate) on Feb 08, 2000 at 09:08 UTC
    Attempt with html tags, though you can see the source by viewing this html page and the previous post 
    
#!/usr/bin/perl

%hash = qw(site.com 10 jamie@site.com:site1.com 4 user@hots:foo.bar 20);

eval print_url_info(\%hash,10,"STDOUT");
write;
exit 0;


sub print_url_info
{
	my ($url_data,
	    $num_urls,
	    $fh)=@_;

	
	my ($format)="",
	   ($header)="$num_urls Most Popular URLs :",
	   ($local_debug)=$debug,
	   ($index)=0;


	##############
	# Geneate a string to be eval'd containing the most popular x urls for this user


	$format = "format $fh =\n";
	$format = $format . "<!--- Start User Top URLS Section -->\n";

	$format = $format . "<font size=3><u>$header</u></font><br><br>\n";

	
	$format = $format . "<table border=0>\n	<tr>\n";
	$format = $format . "		<th align=left>URL</th>\n";
	$format = $format . "		<th width=10></th>\n";
	$format = $format . "		<th align=left>Num of Hits</th>\n	</tr>\n";


	##############
	# Print the urls in descending order

	$index=0;
	foreach (reverse 
		 sort { ${$url_data}{$a} <=> ${$url_data}{$b} } 
		 keys %{$url_data} )
	{
		$format = $format . "	<tr>\n";
		$format = $format . "		<td align=left>$_</td>\n";
		$format = $format . "		<td align=right> ${$url_data}{$_} </td>\n	</tr>\n";

		( ++$index == $num_urls ) && last;
	}

	$format = $format . "</table>\n<br>\n";

	$format = $format . "<!--- End User Top URLS Section -->\n";

	$format = $format . "\n.\n";

	return $format;

}
[reply]

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