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

Hello,

I am having the following problem. Currently we use a perl script as a driver to other scripts. This setup has worked fine before, with the various versions of the program being executed via the following specification : -V prod, -V test, -V devl

Recently, I have noticed based on a user inquiry into this problem that the specification wasn't being used.

Upon further investigation, it appears that @ARGV is being corrupted but I am not sure how. when I split up @ARGV to look at the character count specifically of each argument, where the "devl" should only have 4, it now has 5.

What is even stranger is that if I implement it this way:

perl <thedriver> -V devl

it works fine.

Any ideas or at least an arrow saying what to take a look at?

Thanks!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: @ARGV being corrupted
by gellyfish (Monsignor) on Jul 22, 2004 at 14:10 UTC

    The smallest snippet of code that demonstrates the behaviour that you are talking about would be useful.

    /J\

[reply]
      Here is a snippet:
      if ( $ARGV[$i] eq "devl" ) {
     print  "$ARGV[$i]\n";
}

      [download]
      Thats all the code is. i can actually transplate the specific code and run it seperate and it works fine so what my question is what possibly could have changed in a library, etc that would cause this? maybe a conflict between versions?

      Edit by castaway - added code tags

[reply]
[d/l]

        To reiterate others: You need to tell us which operating system you are using; and show us a command line that fails, rather than one that succeeds.

        Examine what is said, not who speaks.
        "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
        "Think for yourself!" - Abigail
        "Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algoritm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon
[reply]
[d/l]
        brackets should be around $i
[reply]
Re: @ARGV being corrupted
by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Jul 22, 2004 at 14:24 UTC
    Also, specifying the Perl version and the OS you're running on would be very helpful.

    Plus, is there a reason why you're not using Getopt::Std or Getopt::Long to parse command-line arguments? This is a solved problem, with solutions that are part of the mainline Perl distribution ...

    ------
    We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

    Then there are Damian modules.... *sigh* ... that's not about being less-lazy -- that's about being on some really good drugs -- you know, there is no spoon. - flyingmoose

    I shouldn't have to say this, but any code, unless otherwise stated, is untested

[reply]
      This method of option processing has been historic. Full reasons as to why not sure. The version we are using is 5.6.1
[reply]
Re: @ARGV being corrupted
by roju (Friar) on Jul 22, 2004 at 14:25 UTC
    If you use one of the Getopt modules, say Getopt::Std, does it work then? It could be a problem with your argument handling code.

    In place of your current argument grokking code, try: 

    use Getopt::Std;
my %args;
getopts ('V:', \%args);
print $args{'V'};

    [download]
    Do you get the expected results?
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: @ARGV being corrupted
by husker (Chaplain) on Jul 22, 2004 at 14:33 UTC
    If it hurts when you do that, don't do that. Instead, as the other Wise Ones have said, look at Getopt::Std. There's no excuse to re-invent that wheel, not even "that's the way we've always done it!" :)
[reply]
      This fails on both Solaris ( not sure the version at this time ) and Windows 2000 . Using Perl version 5.6.1 . The line of code did detect the option but my previous detect for -V does that too, I will look and see how I can gather the "devl" specification.
[reply]
        Found the problem. Since this is utilized across platforms someone must have modified it on windows. had the ^M characters on the ending lines. removed them and it worked.
[reply]

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