One simple way would be to remove the list from your purview completely and have the sysadmin maintain the list in an alias in your mail server.

However if you're determined to keep it under your control (not that that's a bad thing, just saying . . . :) you could use a YAML file (see also here) with a mapping of sequences (read hash of arrays) for the two cases.

One of the simplest things to do is to simply use a configuration file that contains all the e-mails that you wish to use, read that, build an array from it, and use that in your @mail_to array.

use strict;
use warnings;
use IO::File;

my @email_to;
my $config_file_name = "emails.txt";
my $config_file = new IO::File;

$config_file->open("< $config_file_name") or die("Could not open confi
+guration file $config_file_name\n");
while (<$config_file>) {
   chomp;
   push @mail_to, $_;
}
[download]

It looks like you have a conditional for $pro_box, which has a differing list. In that case, simply use a separate file for the pro list and you're all done

There are modules to handle configuration files (Config::General springs forth after q quick search), but for this purpose is like using a bazooka to kill a fly.

Thanks, but see that's where the problem is, the logic, how to make the results of the array here:
push @mail_to, $_;
be like this line:


my @mail_to = ($pro_box) ? ( 'person1@mycompany.com',
                                  'person2@mycompany.com', 
                                  'person3@mycompany.com', 
                                  'person4@mycompany.com') : ( 'person
+2@mycompany.com',
                                                               'person
+3@mycompany.com', 
                                                               'person
+4@mycompany.com');
[download]

Then use the same variable to control which e-mail configuration file you're using

my $config_file_name;

if ($pro_box) {
  $config_file_name = 'pro_box_email_list.txt';
} else {
  $config_file_name = 'not_pro_box_email_list.txt';
}
[download]

The rest of the code I supplied follows after this

My first instinct is to tell you to centralize these emails either in a text file or database and have your various programs go grab the values as needed. This would give you a central point where you can make updates.

Having said that you may have good reason not to take the above approach (although one escapes me right now). In that case I would write a script that takes 2 args (oldEmailAddress newEmailAddress) and loops through all of my source code files using a regex to update them. I'm not sure how an external program would know to do this unless you were able to modify it as well but good luck.

#
# My email configuration file
#

pro_box = 1

[pro_box]

emails = person1@mycompany.com
emails = person2@mycompany.com
emails = person3@mycompany.com
emails = person4@mycompany.com

[default]

emails = person2@mycompany.com
emails = person3@mycompany.com
emails = person4@mycompany.com
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#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;

use AppConfig qw( :argcount );

my $config = AppConfig->new( {CREATE => 1, 
                      GLOBAL => { ARGCOUNT => ARGCOUNT_LIST }, 
                      });
my $config_file = "email.conf";
$config->define("pro_box", { ARGCOUNT => ARGCOUNT_ONE } );
$config->file($config_file);
#
# Fetch pro box value
#
my $pro_box = $config->pro_box;
#
# Fetch arrays. Get rid of the "1" in @array[0].
#
my @pro_emails = @{$config->pro_box_emails};
shift @pro_emails;
my @default_emails = @{$config->default_emails};
shift @default_emails;

print "Pro Box = $pro_box \n";

print "\n" ;
my @mail_to = ($pro_box) ? @pro_emails : @default_emails ;

for (@mail_to ) {
    print "My addresses are: $_ \n";
}
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C:\Code>perl test_app_config.pl
Pro Box = 1

My addresses are: person1@mycompany.com
My addresses are: person2@mycompany.com
My addresses are: person3@mycompany.com
My addresses are: person4@mycompany.com
[download]