Re: how to embed data in perl programs

Sharan Basappa am Mittwoch, 7. Februar 2007 16:13:
On 2/7/07, Rob Dixon <rob.dixon@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Sharan Basappa wrote:
On 2/6/07, Tom Phoenix <tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2/6/07, Sharan Basappa <sharan.basappa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Question is how to embed text in a perl program instead of reading it
from a file or initializing the text in a string variable.
[snipped]
while (<MY_BLOCK>)

__MY_BLOCK__

It looks as if you've seen the special DATA filehandle and the
__DATA__ marker; but those don't generalize like that. Nice try,
though. (If you change those back to DATA in your program, I think it
will do what you expected. Consider adding 'use strict' and 'use
warnings', though.)

What if I wanted to have multiple embedded (and separate) texts
embedded in
my program.
[snipped]
What the DATA filehandle does is to allow the Perl program to read from
its own
source file. The read position is set initially to the point after the
end of
the program marked by the __END__ tag (as a mnemonic the __DATA__ tag
serves the
same purpose). Since a program has only one source file there can be only
one
such magic filehandle. (As a point of interest, it's possible for a
program to
read its own source by issuing "seek DATA, 0, 0" before reading from the
handle.)

It's clearly possible to add markers within the data so the the program
can
split it up itself, but how about explaining a little more about what you
want
to do: I'm sure the list can come up with an appropriate solution for
you. What
is wrong, for instance, with using real separate data files?

Actually I am writing a script that actually spits out various make
template files.
People then fill in these templates with neccessary details and use them.
The thing is that there are atleast 4-5 different templates and depending
on the
cmd line arg, the script needs to output one of these template files.
Definitely
I would not like to open a file, read it and then output it since moving
the script
(to another project etc) would mean that the files need to be moved too.
Having this information in the same script would make it self contained.

Does that make sense...


Hello Sharan

Another possibility to avoid reading external data that would have to be moved
with the script could be (but this depends a bit from the details) to design
a template base class and, for every template, a separate subclass.

The script itself could be very short, and would load (use) the appropriate
subclass determined by the argument(s). To add a new template, you would not
have to edit an existent file, but just add a new subclass.

No need to move the modules around for a new project on the same machine; and
for new projects on another machine, you could pack the modules into a
distribution and install it with a few make commands.

When going this way, chances are that you don't have to deal with redundant
data at different places in case of changes/additions. From this point of
view, a "self contained script" could be a disadvantage.

This may be overkill; but if there's a possibility that the whole thing had to
be expanded in the future, it's maybe not.

Sorry for my english; I hope I did not miss an important point and my
suggestions makes some sense.

:-)

Dani
.

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