Eric S. Raymond's "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way" is a valuable resource for posters. Of particular interest:

• Explictly state the question
  (Make sure the question you post is the one you want answered)
   
• State the chronological order when applicable
  (If the problem occured after a sequence state that sequence)
   
• If you don't understand a reply, do some research, then ask
  (If nothing else you'll learn something and may even answer your own question)
   
• Follow up with a brief note on the solution
  (Be verbose enough to help others)
   

Lastly, I'd like to reiterate the importance of reducing a problem code to the "minimal test case." It has been my experience that even the most elusive errors become significantly more apparent once the unrelated code is removed. Moreover, questions pertaining to the "minimal test case" are often significantly more apt than those formulated while looking at the code as a whole.

---

---

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.