Greetings!! I'm setting up a database for users who can register and then log in to allow them to change various information corresponding to the database which is a flat text file (.db).

Example: 1|Michael Brown|24 XXX Street, London, UK|423-3429|Male|34|MrX|Secret (ID, Full Name, Address, Tel.#, Gender, Age, User name, Password)

Right now, I only know how to alter information *all* at once. What if a user would want to change only his password? Is there a way for him to change only that without having to include everything else? I have tried to do this but always ends up erasing everything except for the password. I've tried all means but getting nowhere!

Here's what I'm asking for...

I will offer an HTML form page called 'change_password.html' which is available only if a user has already logged in. There will be four fields: User Name: <field> Old Password: <field> New Password: <field>

The last <field> being hidden containing the ID#.

In my current script,

###
my (%rec) = &get_record ($in{'ID'});
###

is called to get all the information according the ID#. Each bit is signified by i.e. $rec{'ID'}, $rec{'Address'} etc. Before any changes occur, the User Name must match $rec{'Username'} and the Password must match $rec{'Password'}. Any success that I've had so far is when all fields are filled up. Otherwise, all is erased except for the information provided. Here's a piece of script that does all this (which I didn't write): 
        $found = 0;     # Makes sure the record is in the database.
        open (DB, "<record.db")
        if ($db_use_flock) { flock(DB, 1); }
        LINE: while (<DB>) {
            (/^#/)      and ($output .= $_ and next LINE);
            (/^\s*$/)   and next LINE;
            chomp;      
            @data = &split_decode($_);

            if ($data[$db_key_pos] eq $in{$db_key}) { # $db_key_pos re
+fers to ID# in the database I think
                $output .= &join_encode(%in);           
                $found = 1;                             
            }
            else {
                $output .= "$_\n";   # else print regular line.
            }
        }
        close DB;
        
             if ($found) {
            open (DB, ">record.db")
                if ($db_use_flock) {
                    flock(DB, 2)
                }
                print DB $output;               
                close DB;
                &site_html_modify_success;
         }
                else {
                &site_html_modify_failure;
                    }
                    }

sub get_record {

    my ($key, $found, @data, $field);
    $key   = shift;  $found = 0;

    open (DB, "<record.db")
    if ($db_use_flock) { flock(DB, 1); }    
    LINE: while (<DB>) {
        (/^#/)      and next LINE;
        (/^\s*$/)   and next LINE;
        chomp;      
        @data = &split_decode($_);
        if ($data[$db_key_pos] eq $key) {   
            $found = 1;
            %rec = &array_to_hash (0, @data);
            last LINE;
        }
    }
    close DB;   
    $found ? (return %rec) : (return undef);
}

sub join_encode {

    my %hash = @_;
    my ($tmp, $col, $output);   

    foreach $col (@db_cols) {               
        $tmp = $hash{$col};
        $tmp =~ s/^\s+//g;              # Trim leading blanks...
        $tmp =~ s/\s+$//g;              # Trim trailing blanks...
        $tmp =~ s/\Q$db_delim\E/~~/og;  # Change delimeter to ~~ symbo
+l.
        $tmp =~ s/\n/``/g;              # Change newline to `` symbol.
        $tmp =~ s/\r//g;                # Remove Windows linefeed char
+acter.
        $output .= $tmp . $db_delim;    # Build Output.
    }
    chop $output;       # remove extra delimeter.
    $output .= "\n";    # add linefeed char.
    return $output;
}

sub split_decode {

    my ($input) = shift;    
    my (@array) = split (/\Q$db_delim\E/o, $input, $#db_cols+1);
    foreach (@array) {
        s/~~/$db_delim/g;   # Retrieve Delimiter..
        s/``/\n/g;          # Change '' back to newlines..
    }   
    return @array;
}

[download]

Please help me out with a script that could handle changing the password and nothing more without sacrificing the other bits of information! I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you in advance. If you would like more code I would gladly provide it. :-) Cheers!

In reply to Help with database management by drewboy

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.