07-27-2011
Methods For Debugging Perl Problems
Note: Not a programmer by profession but occasionally have to program.
I am looking for general methods and freely/readily available tools employed to debug problems during development of perl scripts. Anything that has really helped you out with problems you just couldn't find.
A couple of problems I'm seeing:
- apparent corruption of $_[0], $_[1], etc
- regexp failures that should be matching
I have a lot of subroutines that I unit tested and found all to be working as expected. When I put everything together into a single script, I noticed unexpected results.
For the $_[0] case, I put in debug statements to see how the subroutine was executing and noticed that the value was correct on entry into the routine but then, when processing, it seemed as if it had been truncated (based on how the routine behaved). After I couldn't really figure out what was happening to it, I copied the parameters to temporary variables on entry to the subroutine and then used those variables throughout. And that solved that problem. But again, if I isolate the subroutine it works fine without the temporary variables.
I have a long list of regexps I'm searching for and I know that the expressions, themselves are good. Everyone of them was tested to verify that it was matching what it was supposed to match. But with everything together, the regexps are failing. And I'm talking even simple regexps... like just matching an 11-digit number. More complicated ones are matching and then, on the same line, simple ones are failing to match. During my testing, I tested with multiple expressions on the same line and there was no problem so I don't think it has anything to do with how many
are on the line. But I don't know. I can't understand why the expressions are failing to match. Would it have anything to do with pos? One thing I did change (some time) before I ever noticed any problem was that, once I found a match, I perform a global substitution. I don't think that should be the source of this problem (but I will take out the global substitution in just a minute, just to see) as I am not doing global matches to try to identify the expressions and each attempt at a match uses a new block.
Any debugging suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
------------------------------------------------------------
Edited to add:
I removed the global substitutions and it made no difference in the regexp matching. Some lines aren't even matching any of the regexps that are there so the global substitution never would have even come into play in those cases.
Another thing I just tried... inside my loop where I read the data file, I manually set the line variable to one of the lines in the file (thus ignoring the actual read-in lines) and the matches that are failing when the data is read from the file match this way. The fact that I can take the same file data and do a manual assignment and it will succeed, but it fails when actually reading the file, makes no sense because I just copied/pasted the data so I'm fairly sure there's nothing wrong with the data file.
----------------------------------------------
Edited to add:
It just keeps getting better. Now I deleted the direct assignment and tried the file again. No joy. But then I put the direct assignment back into the loop and it no longer matches there either. Guess it's time to pull it all apart once again and have another go at it.
Last edited by Vi-Curious; 07-27-2011 at 05:20 PM..
Reason: Follow-up re: direct assignment of line data
9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting
1. Shell Programming and Scripting
hi i'm writing multiclient perl server cross plataform
it will redirect one connection to any computer inside mine lan
so when someone connect on this server
it create a socket and connect to the computer
create two threads and read the data incoming from the client
and send to another... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: sendai
0 Replies
2. Shell Programming and Scripting
I have a cgi script I run through apache2 and I need to have a line that contains double quotes within double quotes.
Here's what I need PERL to pass to rrdtool:
HRULE:30#BBBB00:"30.0 constant":dashesIt's a little more complicated since I also have variables in the statement which requires... (13 Replies)
Discussion started by: audiophile
13 Replies
3. Shell Programming and Scripting
I have a problem with signal handlers not working.
I have a long 1000 line code and somehow this code for signal handling is not working:
$SIG{INT} = \&interrupt;
sub interrupt {
print STDERR "Caught a control c!\n";
exit; # or just about anything else you'd want to do
}
Any... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: som.nitk
2 Replies
4. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
Hey
I am new to programming in general but am trying to work in Perl.
The thing is that almost every time I write a script (I use nedit) I get problems with Alt Gr.
E.g. In stead of } I get <gs> or in stead of \ nothing happens. Sometimes it's really bad and when I want a new line then... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Banni
1 Replies
5. Shell Programming and Scripting
Can anyone break down the different methods of using SSH in perl? I'm currently using Net::SSH::Expect, which allows me to login to a machine and execute multiple commands without having to ssh again. This feature of holding the session works well for me, but it's slow. If I set timeouts to 4... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: mrwatkin
3 Replies
6. Shell Programming and Scripting
for security reasons I can not post any part of the script in question in this thread. i hope im not breaking any rules by not doing so.
but i have a perl script that i've been asked to turn on debugging on.
i didn't write this perl script and i have very very little knowledge of perl. so i... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: SkySmart
3 Replies
7. Shell Programming and Scripting
Hello
I am on my way to improve my wonderful Perl skills, I got an issue which I want to share with you all. I have a Perl module which looks like
package Cocoa;
require Exporter;
@ISA = qw(Exporter);
my $a='';
my $b='';
my $c='';
sub new {
my $this = shift; # Create... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: adisky123
8 Replies
8. Red Hat
Hi,
We have RHEL 5.X OS installed here, where we need few Perl modules installed. I have local copy of Perl modules in .tar.gz format. The problem is that we don't have Internet available here and it is really pain to install all the modules manually on all the servers one by one.
So can I... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: nixhead
1 Replies
9. Shell Programming and Scripting
the attached perl script is a deamon that, once kicked off from the command line, it runs in the background and waits for the master server to tell it what plugins to run.
the script works well. but the problem is, whenever i start it, after about a few seconds of starting it, i start getting... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: SkySmart
4 Replies
LEARN ABOUT MINIX
dh_perl
DH_PERL(1) Debhelper DH_PERL(1)
NAME
dh_perl - calculates Perl dependencies and cleans up after MakeMaker
SYNOPSIS
dh_perl [debhelperoptions] [-d] [librarydirs...]
DESCRIPTION
dh_perl is a debhelper program that is responsible for generating the ${perl:Depends} substitutions and adding them to substvars files.
The program will look at Perl scripts and modules in your package, and will use this information to generate a dependency on perl or
perlapi. The dependency will be substituted into your package's control file wherever you place the token ${perl:Depends}.
dh_perl also cleans up empty directories that MakeMaker can generate when installing Perl modules.
OPTIONS
-d In some specific cases you may want to depend on perl-base rather than the full perl package. If so, you can pass the -d option to make
dh_perl generate a dependency on the correct base package. This is only necessary for some packages that are included in the base
system.
Note that this flag may cause no dependency on perl-base to be generated at all. perl-base is Essential, so its dependency can be left
out, unless a versioned dependency is needed.
-V By default, scripts and architecture independent modules don't depend on any specific version of perl. The -V option causes the current
version of the perl (or perl-base with -d) package to be specified.
library dirs
If your package installs Perl modules in non-standard directories, you can make dh_perl check those directories by passing their names
on the command line. It will only check the vendorlib and vendorarch directories by default.
CONFORMS TO
Debian policy, version 3.8.3
Perl policy, version 1.20
SEE ALSO
debhelper(7)
This program is a part of debhelper.
AUTHOR
Brendan O'Dea <bod@debian.org>
11.1.6ubuntu2 2018-05-10 DH_PERL(1)