in reply to May be OT: Can ad blockers truncate POST data?

if ( -f $file && $timestamp != (stat($file))[9] || 0 )

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May I ask what the function of the || 0 is?
On further interrogation, the user admits to having recently installed some pop-up blocking software (Google toolbar and "Add/Subtract Pro"), but claims that he isn't have problems with any other site. It sure looks like one or both of the pop-up blockers (perhaps by interaction) are interfering with POSTs, perhaps by rewriting content-length or content.
Well, they shouldn't, but who knows? There are a myriad of proxies out there, and since none of them have been written by Knuth, there will be a gazillion bugs in them. So, changes are that one of those bugs causes bytes to be dropped (newline vs. network line ending?).

But fantasizing about possible bugs in unknown software has absolutely nothing at all to do with Perl.

Abigail

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Re: Re: May be OT: Can ad blockers truncate POST data?
by dws (Chancellor) on Feb 10, 2004 at 20:39 UTC
    May I ask what the function of the || 0 is?

    It's deadwood from an earlier version of that statement, where I wanted a file timestamp of 0 if the file didn't exist. I've removed the deadwood.

    But fantasizing about possible bugs in unknown software has absolutely nothing at all to do with Perl.

    It depends on where you choose to draw the line. I have what amounts to a "straight out of the book" chunk of Perl, and it doesn't work as expected in one case. Now what's unique about that case may be environmental, but the path between a browser and a web server is environment that's common to all Perl CGI scripts. Hence I marked it "Maybe OT". If you disagree, please feel free to consider the post. And "unknown software" is a bit of a stretch. I named the two packages installed. And yes, there may be unknown proxy software involved, but it's a low probability that it's a factor in this problem.

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