RE: Request for advice/suggestions....

-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Dixon [mailto:rob.dixon@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 23 July 2008 20:46
To: beginners@xxxxxxxx
Cc: Richard.Copits@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Request for advice/suggestions....


Richard.Copits@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

I'm very new with PERL and have been given a task of doing some
maint.
on an
existing really big PERL program. What I'd like to ask is if the
changes
I
want to implement will work and ask for suggestions on how to make
one
major
change working with subroutines.

The application makes use of a number of arrays that contain
categories
and
subcategories. What I'd like to do is to move these into a separate
file
(extras.pl) and reference it with a "require". These structures were
in
the
mainline program. Adding new categories involved editing the
mainline
code,
so my thought was it would be easier and less trouble- prone to put
them
in a
separate file to which new ones could be added easily. What I want
to
add to
the external "required" file are these objects. Can I do this pretty
transparently and easily? Will I run into any serious problems by
moving
them
to a separate file?


------------------------------------------------------------------------
use vars qw(%config %category %paper %records);

%category = (
p01 => 'PAPER ITEMS GENERAL',
p02 => 'Diaries and Journals',
p03 => 'Indentures',
p04 => 'Letters',
p05 => 'Certificates',
p10 => 'Other Paper Items',

r01 => 'RECORDS GENERAL',
r02 => 'Birth and Death',
r03 => 'Marriage ',
r04 => 'Wills ',
r05 => 'Census',
r06 => 'Court and Probate',
r07 => 'Immigration and Ship Lists',
r08 => 'Military',
r09 => 'Maps',
r10 => 'Other Records',
);

%paper = (
p01 => 'PAPER ITEMS GENERAL',
p02 => 'Diaries and Journals',
p03 => 'Indentures',
p04 => 'Letters',
p05 => 'Certificates',
p10 => 'Other Paper Items',
);

%records = (
r01 => 'RECORDS GENERAL',
r02 => 'Birth and Death',
r03 => 'Marriage ',
r04 => 'Wills ',
r05 => 'Census',
r06 => 'Court and Probate',
r07 => 'Immigration and Ship Lists',
r08 => 'Military',
r09 => 'Maps',
r10 => 'Other Records',
);


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Secondly, when additional categories are added, the program is coded
such
that a new subroutine has to be inserted dealing with that category.
For
example, there would be a subroutine added for "paper" and one for
"records".
In each subroutine there are only 3 "references" to the item. For
example,
in the "paper" subroutine there are only these 3 places where "paper
stuff"
is mentioned. Sample is below (with non-relevant code removed). So,
if
we had
10 categories there would be ten subroutines - one for each category
-
differing only in the 3 places where the category topic is
mentioned. My
question - is it possible to create only one "generic" subroutine
that
could
have the topic name plugged in rather than having ten almost-alike
subroutines? If so, can you recommend a sample code snippet that I
can
model
the procedure after?

These subroutines are accessed by :

elsif ($form{'action'} eq 'paper') { &paper; } #Paper Items Category
elsif ($form{'action'} eq 'records') { &records; } #Records Category


sub paper {
&chkclose;
print "<p align=center><b><font
color=$config{'colortablebody'}
face=Arial size=2>Paper Categories</font></b></td></tr>";
my $key;
foreach $key (sort keys %paper) {
}}


sub records {
&chkclose;
print "<p align=center><b><font
color=$config{'colortablebody'}
face=Arial size=2>Records Categories</font></b></td></tr>";
my $key;
foreach $key (sort keys %records) {
}}

I recommend that you modularize this and write a Categories.pm file
that
defines
the data, and then access it with

use Categories;

in your main code. It would be nice if you could make this a bit
object-
oriented
and make the hashes private to the Categories module, with exported
subroutines
that let the main code do what it wanted with them. But without seeing
how
your
program is structured I can't say whether that's feasible or not.

Your module would look like this. As it seemed that %category was just
an
amalgamation of %paper and %records I've written it that way.




package Categories;

use strict;
use warnings;

require Exporter;
our @ISA = qw/Exporter/;

our (%config, %category, %paper, %records);
our @EXPORT = qw(%config %category %paper %records);

%paper = (
p01 => 'PAPER ITEMS GENERAL',
p02 => 'Diaries and Journals',
p03 => 'Indentures',
p04 => 'Letters',
p05 => 'Certificates',
p10 => 'Other Paper Items',
);

%records = (
r01 => 'RECORDS GENERAL',
r02 => 'Birth and Death',
r03 => 'Marriage ',
r04 => 'Wills ',
r05 => 'Census',
r06 => 'Court and Probate',
r07 => 'Immigration and Ship Lists',
r08 => 'Military',
r09 => 'Maps',
r10 => 'Other Records',
);

%category = (%paper, %records);

1;




As for generalizing your category subroutines, again a lot depends on
the
scope
of the data and subroutines involved ( chkclose(), for instance, and
anything
else you've edited out. But you could write something like this.




sub _process_category {

my ($hash, $text) = @_;

chkclose();

print <<HTML;
<p align=center>
<b>
<font color=$config{colortablebody} face=Arial size=2>
$text
</font>
</b>
</td>
</tr>
HTML

foreach my $key (sort keys %$hash) {
}
}

sub paper {
_process_category(\%paper, 'Paper Categories');
}

sub records {
_process_category(\%records, 'Records Categories');
}




But once again it would be best if these subroutines were exported
from
the
Categories module and the data itself was kept private. Only you know
what
is
possible here.

HTH,

[Stewart Anderson]
May be a bit late for this but, you could also use Config::Simple
to achieve this. I know its intended for config files but it would
lend itself quite well to doing what you want. The real benefit is
that you would not need to edit Perl at all to add new entries to
categories or entire categories, you could just edit your config file.

Couple of simple examples below. The Config::Simple docs describe
lots more functionality that you could use. Stick the commented
section into categories.cfg (uncommented of course)


#! /usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict ;
use Data::Dumper;
use Config::Simple;

my $catcfg = new Config::Simple('categories.cfg');
print "P01:\t " . $catcfg->param('paper.p01') . "\n";

Config::Simple->new('categories.cfg')->import_names();
print "r01:\t " . our $RECORDS_R01 . "\n";

#[paper]
#p01 = PAPER ITEMS GENERAL
#p02 = Diaries and Journals
#p03 = Indentures
#p04 = Letters
#p05 = Certificates
#p10 = Other Paper Items
#
#
#[records]
#r01 = RECORDS GENERAL
#r02 = Birth and Death
#r03 = Marriage
#r04 = Wills
#r05 = Census
#r06 = Court and Probate
#r07 = Immigration and Ship Lists
#r08 = Military
#r09 = Maps
#r10 = Other Records





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Relevant Pages

  • RE: Request for advice/suggestions....
    ... p01 => 'PAPER ITEMS GENERAL', ... These subroutines are accessed by: ... sub records { ... As for generalizing your category subroutines, ...
    (perl.beginners)
  • Re: Request for advice/suggestions....
    ... p01 => 'PAPER ITEMS GENERAL', ... 10 categories there would be ten subroutines - one for each category - ... sub records { ... As for generalizing your category subroutines, again a lot depends on the scope ...
    (perl.beginners)
  • Request for advice/suggestions....
    ... on an existing really big PERL program. ... major change working with subroutines. ... prone to put them in a separate file to which new ones could be added ... p01 => 'PAPER ITEMS GENERAL', ...
    (perl.beginners)