#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

sub param { }
if ( param() ) {

  my $name     = param("name");
  my $email    = param("email");
  my $phone    = param("phone");
  my $url      = param("url");
  my $requests = param("requests");


  if ( $name ne "") {
     if ($email ne "") {
        if ($requests ne "") {
          print "very good!";
        }
        else {
          print "please leave a message";
        }
     } # You were missing me
     else {
        print "please enter your email";
     }
  }    # You were missing me
  else {
     print "please enter your name";
  }
}
[download]

You're not closing your first and your second IF, that's where the problems occur. So all I did was added a closed bracket after the first and second ELSE. Please see the script below.

if (param())
{

  my $name     = param("name");
  my $email    = param("email");
  my $phone    = param("phone");
  my $url      = param("url");
  my $requests = param("requests");


  if ($name ne "")
  {
     if ($email ne "")
     {
        if ($requests ne "")
        {
          print "very good!";
        } 
        else
        {
          print "please leave a message";
        } }
     else
     {
        print "please enter your email";
     } }
  else
  {
     print "please enter your name";
  }
}
[download]

sometimes they can be a bugger to fix.

I can see such problems being hard to fix when (and only when) the brackets are not lined up like in the solution you gave...

On guard!

Each coder has their own way they prefer to see and write code. I much prefer doubling up the closures then break into a new line.

Many might argue with this being harder to read, but I've been pretty constant with it since the very beginning.



"Age is nothing more than an inaccurate number bestowed upon us at birth as just another means for others to judge and classify us"

sulfericacid

Others have mentioned that you're just missing a couple closing brackets. That's accurate. I just wanted to mention some tricks (good sound principles actually) that you can use to avoid this problem in the future.

First (and this has already been mentioned but deserves more attention), develop a style where it's easy to spot mismatched brackets of all kinds. Your example code is getting there, but it let you down still. I kind of like cuddled brackets like this:

if (...) {
    #stuff
} else {
    #more stuff.
}
[download]

...or...

if ( .... ) {
    if ( ... ) {
        # stuff
    } else {
        # more stuff
    }
}
[download]

To me that keeps it pretty clear, but everyone has their own minor variations on such themes. Consistancy helps.

Another thing to try is a syntax-highlighting editor. Well-done syntax highlighting will help you to see when brackets don't match. The editor I use actually draws a little dotted line between matching brackets whenever my cursor is resting on a bracket. If the line doesn't lead anywhere, I can quickly see that's where I've got a problem (I use SciTE, which I think you can Google for. Other good (and possibly better) editors will have other techniques that help. But a good editor really can be a step in the right direction. Once you become familiar with the editor, it's easy to look at a piece of code and see where the syntax highlighting looks messed up. ...and that's where you can focus your efforts.

Another technique is to just test-compile the script. This is very helpful when you're working in a CGI environment where it may otherwise take several steps to get at the error messages. To test compile code, and see what errors the trial compilation may be generating, you can, at the command line, type: perl -c scriptname

Doing that will get Perl to attempt to compile the script, and if there's a problem, you'll see the errors immediately, rather than having to sift through webserver error logs.

Hope these tips help...

This looks like a CGI. The technique of building up an error string and reporting it if present may be of use:

my $errstr = '';

for my $param( qw( name email phone url requests ) ) {
    $errstr .= "Please enter your $param<br>\n" unless defined param($
+param);
}

# if $errstr is true we have some errors, so tell user
if ( $errstr ) {
    print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";
    print "<p>Please click back and correct these error(s):\n<p>" . $e
+rrstr;
  exit 0;
}

# got data OK so continue processing
[download]

if (param()) {
    my $name     = param("name");
    my $email    = param("email");
    my $phone    = param("phone");
    my $url      = param("url");
    my $requests = param("requests");

    if ($name ne "") {
        if ($email ne "") {
            if ($requests ne "") { print "very good!"; } 
            else { print "please leave a message"; }
        } 
        else { print "please enter your email"; }
    }
    else { print "please enter your name"; }
}
[download]

if (param()) {
    if (param('name') ne "") {
        if (param('email') ne "") {
            if (param('requests') ne "") {
                print "very good!";
            } else { print "please leave a message"; }
        } else { print "please enter your email"; }
    } else { print "please enter your name"; }
}
[download]

if ($var < 0) {
    <do something>
    if ($var2 == 1) {
        <do something else>
    }#close second if
} elsif ($var == 0) {
    <do this other thing>
} else {
    <do something completely different>
}#close first if
[download]

Its really a matter of preference, find something that works and stick with it. Keeping things indented and in line helps as well. Marking the closing braces can be used with for loops, code blocks or anything like that.

That's precisely what I do except I extend that idea to include all paired characters.

I very rarely get any syntax errors using this method.

It is also independent of the programmer's choice of code layout.

Regards,

PN5