Q&A Cleanup Quest

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Q&A Cleanup -- first five sections by neshura (Chaplain) on May 12, 2000 at 02:48 UTC
How about more descriptive names for easier searching on the following nodes? My suggestions are much longer, but they contain enough information to guess at the content of the nodes (unlike the original names). arrays (okay) CGI programming Rename this may be basic CGI and carriage returns to How do I handle mid-line carriage returns in a flatfile database? Rename File Upload to Can I handle file uploads with Perl without using a module like CGI.pm? Rename Spaces in paramater (sic) to When constructing a URL from script variables, how do I make sure that spaces are properly handled? Rename Validating form fields to How do I detect and handle empty form fields?, and combine it with its cousin Validating Form fields (take two) Rename Managing user sessions to How do I maintain the security of user session information? This could easily be combined with a related question, Protecting login information passed thru URLs Rename How I can maintain a session cookie to How do I set a cookie to expire when the user closes all browser windows?; maybe expand the question and answer to address how to handle cookie expiration more generally data formatting This whole section is filled with q&a that belongs in SOPW or another Q&A section, mostly strings and regexs. Is this section about data formatting the concept or about the reserved word format used in templating? database programming move Confusing SQL Query and Query not executing properly to SOPW because they aren't likely to be frequently asked, at least not in their existing forms do something with Problems installing DBI module for PERL; it contains a useful tidbit about 5.6 that I'd hate to see lost, but the question is so generally phrased as to be basically useless. dates and times Rename time() smaller than seconds? to something like Is there a way to call time() with an increment smaller than seconds? Well, that's the first five sections. yawn I'll come back to it later. e-mail neshura	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup -- first five sections by Russ (Deacon) on May 18, 2000 at 00:01 UTC
neshura, May I add $.02? I think I would keep How can I print a number with a set number of decimal points? and maybe How do I keep anything other than Alpha/Numeric data out of a variable? in the data formatting section. "How can I print a number..." is certainly related to data formatting. "How do I keep anything..." is just a basic regex question, so that's why I say maybe to it. In my view, this section is about the concept of formatting data for display, of which the keyword "format" is only a small subset. :-) Russ	[reply]
Data formatting section in Q&A by neshura (Chaplain) on May 18, 2000 at 02:10 UTC
Hmmm...well I'll give you the interest on your $0.02. :-) I'm pretty sure that the latter question will prove more useful if placed in the regex section than in the data formatting section. But you are probably right on the first question -- stuff having to do with printf, sprintf, and format could all go in this area. Honestly though, data formatting is itself a bit redundant. If someone has a question like "How do I format a page that I'm printing to a web browser?", does that go under data formatting or CGI? Or both? Actually, (just thinking out loud here), Q&A should have been structured so that each question has one or more keywords/subjects, and then the categories are based on those keywords (with questions appearing under multiple categories)...some of the existing questions ,and also the existing answers, are really cross-category examples... e-mail neshura	[reply]
RE: Data formatting section in Q&A by Russ (Deacon) on May 18, 2000 at 02:44 UTC
Q&A Restructuring Proposal by neshura (Chaplain) on May 18, 2000 at 06:39 UTC
Q&A Cleanup Quest -- Final 6 Categories by neshura (Chaplain) on May 14, 2000 at 23:14 UTC
debugging Rename Is there a bug when running perl by a big input file? to Can using arbitrarily large input files change the behavior of my script? and provide a more complete answer directories Rename Filesize counting recursive to How do I recursively count file sizes in a script that works under both Windows and Linux? Rewrite the question description for How do I get the last accessed time for directory? to be a bit more readable; btrott apparently knew what the Monk was asking, but it took me several rereads to figure it out. HTTP and FTP Rename How can I load a webpage into my program? into How can my script retrieve the contents of an existing webpage? Move how to config cgi application to SOPW Expand LWP::Simple, a bug in head() function? so that it has a complete answer or move it to SOPW Rename Posting data to forms that use MS FrontPage webbots. to Can I use Perl to send POST data to forms that use MS FrontPage webbots?; needs a definitive answer (is it possible or not? has anyone tried?) Rename how to decline set-cookie response from server to How can my script accept or decline a cookie? Rename Get file from UNIX server to Windows NT client using Perl to How can I retrieve a file from a UNIX server using Perl on a Windows NT client? Move Why does ftp request return error reference to socket.pm to SOPW mail and news Move Trying to send email from perl but getting error "recipient address specify" to SOPW math Move Mathematical bug in int()? to SOPW because it is already covered in the FAQ. Or rewrite to mirror the FAQ question and answer. nested data structures -- okay e-mail neshura	[reply]
Links to working code, network programming section by kudra (Vicar) on May 12, 2000 at 14:54 UTC
I'm in agreement that it's probably best if questions are general (although a small amount of code to illustrate the point might be of use). But even if the questions are general, the answers need not be--links to snippets or catacombs following an explanation would be nice. Sometimes it is quite helpful to see a working example if you just don't understand the syntex from the answer. Now for some comments on the Network programming section (someone had to take the middle of the list): Questions without answers, such as 'Possible to unpack a word byte' don't add much to Q&A without answers. 'When I use socket how can get the QUERY_STRING?' might be renamed 'Sending and receiving data to/from a socket' if the question were made more general. 'How do I put a web page into a variable' looks like a two-part question, part of which is a network question 'How to get a web page' and part of which is an HTML parsing question. 'How do I send a file through a Socket Connection' could probably be combined with the QUERY_STRING question. This one has a nice generic answer but a rather undetailed question. 'Transfer file through socket ,OK, but I get a blank file on the receiving end .' has an undetailed description. The question seems more like a Seekers question. The bottom part of the answer, about dealing with binary files, would be good to keep around under a different heading. 'Can't locate object' is a very specific question better suited for Seekers. 'Non-blocking accept' should perhaps include 'with Socket' in the title. It includes a thank-you post. 'Read data from a socket' has no formulated question. The answer could be combined with the others about reading and writing to sockets. 'Questions about Socket, IO::Socket IO::Socket::INET' seems to be a fairly specific question. The suggestion to read the man pages could be preserved under a more general 'Understanding Socket modules' or something of the ilk. 'Help me with the code . need help ASAP' is a specific (and unclarified) question. 'How do I invoke a procedure on a server remotely' could be combined with 'How do I execute a list of Unix commands...' as both address performing operations on remote machines. 'Two way communication in Sockets. Need Two way Client Server Interaction' looks like it could be combined with 'Client Server Communication. How to accept data sent by the server' and has a bit in common with 'how do you make a server program accept connections infinitely?' The question 'How to send 1 query to many sites & read back their replies without using LWP?' seems specific. The answer about LWP::Parallel could be included in the other client/server communication questions.	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by Russ (Deacon) on May 12, 2000 at 07:02 UTC
Along the lines of neshura's post above, I've started at the end of the categories (so we can all work toward the middle and avoid duplication(?))... Subroutines Remove how do i work this Strings Fix the syntax error in How do I reverse a string or the words in a string? and remove the resultant answers Combine the answers to How do I compare two strings? (Add a general answer about the string comparison operators to the top of turnstep's answer and remove the typos statement) How do I get the Nth Character of a String? The third answer (by Anonymous Monk) is interesting, but not terribly helpful to someone who would be asking the question... Rename splitting a long string on a word boundary, at a certain length to: How can I split a line close to a certain length, but on a word boundary? Change the description of How do i take out a string from a string? into a more generic question, and make perlmonkey's answer a bit less specific to the actual question (Start with "Your substitution should be:" and drop the last sentence.) All is well in Sorting That's all for now... (This kind of thing is long and tedious) :-) Russ	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by Russ (Deacon) on May 14, 2000 at 00:36 UTC
Here are three more categories (still working from back-to-front) programs and processes Rename Getting data into an array from a system or exec call to: How do I store and manipulate the output from another process? Why aren't my backtick calls working? Rename to: Why aren't my backtick calls working on Win32? Clean up the question's sample code HTML halting a process before my script stops Rename to How can I kill subprocesses when the main script dies? Combine the two answers into one, or expand on merlyn's answer to more clearly link his response to chromatic's. All is well in references regular expressions How do I remove whitespace at the beginning or end of my string? should have its answers combined into one coherent answer (and I would like to see some mention of \G as referenced in Effective Perl Programming (I loaned it to someone, so cannot give a page number)) How can I strip away some nested markup code in html by perl, like <SCRIPT> ? : Remove the last answer (by Anonymous Monk) (not RegExp-related) Regexp: spliting words w/ periods in em has a very large number of misconceptions in the question like: using the binding operator in split using an array as the expression to split I think this whole question should just be removed. Double quotes within double quotes Rename to How can I find nested delimiters? Remove all but btrott's answer (because his works as requested) Find someplace to use little_mistress' answer about greedy vs. non-greedy in regexps (perhaps a new question: "Why does my regexp match more than I want?" or something) Add a reference to the Text::Balanced module How do I extract all text between two keywords like start and end? Encourage chromatic to edit his answer as he wished at the time Possibly reference Text::DelimMatch or any other useful module Remove the duplicate answer in What can regular expressions NOT do? Rename <a href="index.pl?node_id="9134"> How do I split a long string without any spaces up? to How do I split up a long string with no spaces Rename <a href="index.pl?node_id="11056"> I need to get the last occurences of a list of six words in a file. to How do I get the last occurence of a word (or words) in a file? Russ	[reply]
Q&A Cleanup Quest / Section Nested Data Structures by Corion (Patriarch) on May 18, 2000 at 15:27 UTC
First of all, we should organize our replies a bit more and include in the topic maybe the sections we took a look at - that makes it easier to find unclean sections for those who want to join work - it seems like organization and afterwards cleaning up must take place at every level `:)` but at least at this level, we know that this quest will end and all our comments will go into the big bit bucket some time afterwards ... I took a look at the Nested Data Structures section This section does not really need reworking, as there are only few questions and few answers, and all answers are good and matching to the questions. One could add references to the Perl man pages to "How do I make an array of arrays ?" and/or combine the answers into one writeup, but IMO, there's nothing to be taken away in this section.	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest / Section Nested Data Structures by Corion (Patriarch) on May 18, 2000 at 15:35 UTC
D'oh - and even though I tried to look carefully not to duplicate other peoples efforts, I did ... Oh well ;)	[reply]
Numbers section cleanup bit by comatose (Monk) on May 12, 2000 at 08:30 UTC
Numbers section cleanup bit: How can I print a number with a set number of decimal points? This node repeats the same information as How do I round a floating point number?. vroom's answer in the former is the best to use. Perhaps rephrase the question to: How can I print or set a number to a given number of decimal places?	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by btrott (Parson) on May 12, 2000 at 03:00 UTC
This is a very general comment, and probably pretty obvious, but I think we should definitely make sure that all categorized Q&A and, well, questions. Meaning, in the form of questions. As such, this is a pretty general comment, since there are a lot of Q&A that aren't in the form of questions. Also, what would be the best thing to do about Q&A like this one: how do i work this? I don't know what the OP was asking other than "Why is this not working?", and that's not a good question for Q&A. So: any suggestions on what to do with such Q&A? Perhaps we could move them and the answers into SOPW?	[reply]
RE: RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by neshura (Chaplain) on May 12, 2000 at 03:13 UTC
Agreed! :-) I've been working on that. But I think a lot of the questions address common enough problems that, properly phrased, they could stay in Q&A without being line noise. Somebody would have to actually go through and fix 'em up though. e-mail neshura	[reply]
RE: RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by Novician (Novice) on May 12, 2000 at 09:54 UTC
True... quite a lot are on "How do i do this?" or "How to make this work?" and not I tried this way, and it cant work, i am doing something like this and got stuck. If you keep asking people for help without trying YOu arent learning anything too. do some trial and errors before asking the questions. Ask only if you really really have no clue or how to solve ya problems. You could have an archive of all the old Q&A stuffs and list the newer Q&A stuff on the main page.	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by chromatic (Archbishop) on May 14, 2000 at 10:50 UTC
I'll take a look at Files, Hashes, and Input and Output. I'm feeling ambitious. Files Answer: How do I read the contents of a file? -- needs a return value check and formatting cleanup. Answer: How do I append or write to the end of a file? does too. Answer: How do I delete a file? needs to check the return value. Answer: How do I read an entire file into a string? needs an explanation and a return value check for open. Answer: How do you write to the middle of a file? does too. The answer given there isn't as simple as the one posed in the question, either. how to use arguments in the code. belongs somewhere else. programs and processes perhaps? how do i add file/folder needs an example or two in the answer. How do i read and search into a text file which is in another remote host? should go in network programming, perhaps, or just go away. It's an incomplete question. How do you store a line from a file in a variable? is the same type of question as How do I read contents of a file?. I need an array of filehandles. should be changed to How do I create an array of filehandles? and the two answers combined. Is it possible to get a filename from a filehandle? is a FAQ, according to merlyn. How do i go to a particular char in a file. How do u use the fseek function? could be renamed "How do I seek a certain position in a file?" Perl doesn't seem to have an fseek function, though C does. It also has a couple of thank you posts. Is there a method to extract a certain number of char from a line in a file? could probably go away, as it's a description of substr. Or else, rename it to "How can I extract a certain number of characters from a file?" good methods for searching large log files? could be changed to "How can I process large files efficiently?" Answer: How do I delete files based on their timestamp? can be deleted, according to BBQ. How do I test if a file has write permission? could use a bit of formatting touch-up. How do I implement belongs in CGI programming, and should be called "How can I check the HTTP_REFERER variable against a list of referrers?" Hashes How do I use/reference Multidimensional hashed arrays? confuses me. Is it about an array or a hash or some combination of the two? How do I completely remove a key/value pair from my hash? needs a bit of formatting and a # to mark the comment in vroom's answer. Why is this statement always evaluating to true? has more to do with true/false values than hashes, and should have been asked in Seekers of Perl Wisdom. Input and Output Funny usage of print function could be renamed to "Why does Perl print newlines embedded in a string?", but that would make the answer super obvious. :) how do i redirect STDOUT, STDIN, or STDERR to a FILE? needs one authoritative answer. Perhaps Buckaroo Buddha could concatenate his responses. Bad file description for win32/bash/perl combo should have been in Seekers of Perl Wisdom.	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by Russ (Deacon) on May 14, 2000 at 09:53 UTC
These are the categories which are, as yet, unanalyzed by anyone: debugging directories files hashes HTTP and FTP clients input and output mail and news math nested data structures	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by perlmonkey (Hermit) on May 18, 2000 at 11:41 UTC
I think princepawn is right. There are tons of places to get perl tips, and all are basically growing independently. It would be cool to try to unify some of the these projects into one searchable area. The most obvious candidate is mentioned in TPJ this issue and is a perlfaq database http://www.perlfaq.com/faqs/. The format look familiar anyone? This next statmement might be sacrilege, so I hope I am not excommunicated. I think we should think about totally ditching Q&A before we put too much more effort into it, and move our valuable tidbits to perlfaq.com. Maybe make the Q&A section just an interface to perlfaq.com. Both websites are striving for the same goal, so it makes sense to sort of join forces (and I think this is in the spirit of the everything project). There is some obvious features missing from perlfaq.com compared to what is here, like the ability for anyone to instantly answer a question. But that privilege might get yanked from here also, so the differences are minor. It might just take some dicussions with them to resolve any issues either group might have. And I think their site is more closely moderated, so it should not have some of the data integrity issues that are currently in Q&A. It is just an idea, but it would be nice to see some collaboration among the perl resource sites that are already going strong.	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by Studdly (Monk) on May 12, 2000 at 22:19 UTC
Being something of an anarchist, I decided not to start at the beginning or end, and instead just jump right in the middle. I only had time to look at one section, the one on OO programming. The only problem I found was that the question, 'What is the best way to learn to program?' doesn't seem to have anything to do with OO at all. I don't know exactly where it does belong, perhaps a new section? -SYP	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by royalanjr (Chaplain) on May 13, 2000 at 00:23 UTC
In the CGI section, you can rename the question Why won't scripts on an Apache server not show up when viewed with Nepscape to something like "How do I correctly send HTML headers?" or something along that line. And ditch my response in there as it adds nothing. Roy Alan "I quit; I concede. Tanj on your silly game!" -- Louis Wu	[reply]
RE: Q&A Cleanup Quest by princepawn (Parson) on May 17, 2000 at 16:44 UTC
The Perl community is rapidly running the risk of being poorly catalogued... Right now, if you want to find what you want, we now have the following resources: comp.lang.perl.misc various Perl mailing lists www.perlmonks.org CPAN The Perl Scripts Archive Now, the bottom line, is: "People want their problem solved, regardless of where in the world on the internet it is. As it stands now, they stand a chance of missing information because it is not topically organized. And of course countless amounts of information is being regurgitated due to this lack of categorization." Thus a common set of keywords needs to be established and ALL URLs related to a keyword(s) need to be pointed to from there. Take Class::DBI Where do you look? OOP? DBI? Persistence? The answer is: you should be able to look in any of these places and find it AND furthermore it relates to web application development so you should be able to find it there as well. The amount of Perl facts is roughly constant, but the propensity for regurgitation is infinite.	[reply]

Quest starts at:	May 12, 2000 at 01:20 UTC
Quest ends at:	May 19, 2000 at 01:20 UTC