Here are a few pointers to get you on your way:

• use strict; use warnings
• Assign values to a hash like this: my %hash = ( key1 => 'val1', key2 => 'val2' );
• Indent your code - try using perltidy or similar to do this.
• Don't try to pack too much login into one line: for example:

  $MissingPatchList{$BulletinID} = "$pad{(length($MissingPatchList{$Bull
  +etinID}))}$MissingPatchList{$BulletinID}";
  
  # better written as:
  
  $MissingPatchList{$BulletinID} =
      $pad{ length( $MissingPatchList{$BulletinID} ) }  
      . $MissingPatchList{$BulletinID};
  [download]

• Comments: a few comments serve both to make the code make sense and to break up the flow into nice chunks.
• This code could (I think) be broken down into subfunctions. This would make it easier to test. You are testing arn't you?

The whole XP programming thing would love this task. The XP way would be to write a load of tests so that you know the code works and then to start changing the code - testing as you go. As long as the test still work then the code is good.

You might like this article: http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2003/10/09/refactoring.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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.