PERL

By

Andrew Pitonyak

HOME	Book	Conferences	OpenOffice.org Macros	Database	Spam	Perl	My Perl Utilities	VYM	Misc	Magic

I have two primary perl sections, my general utilities and my spam utilities. Just in case it is not obvious, the link general utilities loads a page that allows you to see these utilities including the source code. The other link, spam utilities, is for the same purpose.

General Utilites

My general utilites include a package BayesianTokenCounter package to tokenize files. and then determine the probability that another file is in one group or another. I use this to determine if an email message is, or is not, spam. There are perl scripts to use this package with the spam utilities.

The DeepCopy package is used to make clean copies of data structures that include references. To look at the actual code, follow the general utilities link.

The SmallLogger package allows for logging. The output can be echoed to the screen or a file. Output is echoed based on what type of message is printed. To look at the actual code, follow the general utilities link.

The XMLUtil package is used to convert data structures to XML and the XML back into data structures. To look at the actual code, follow the general utilities link.

The DateUtil package is used by the logger to format time/date strings. The output of the logger is configurable to include different things including formatted time/date stamps in both the filename and each output line. To look at the actual code, follow the general utilities link.

The SafeGlob package was originally written to avoid a problem in the glob method. If there are too many files in a directory, then the glob method would fail. Added functionality has been added to allow for searching based on both file specs and regular expressions. This also allows for recursing subdirectories. To look at the actual code, follow the general utilities link.

The StringUtil package has methods for various string manipulations. To look at the actual code, follow the general utilities link.

Spam Utilites

These were written so that I could avoid spam on my computer. There is a better write-up here and the utilities are here.

Formatting And Extracting Dates And Times In Perl

There are two primary reasons that people come to my website if they do not already know me. The primary reason is of course Macro Programming using OpenOffice. The second reason is to try and figure out how to parse dates and times using PERL. If your only purpose in life is to format and use dates and times, then simply download a copy of my date utility code. You can see a pretty version of it if you like, or simply see how to use it.

If you want to do it the hard way - meaning you want to do it yourself - it is not that difficult. First, call the time() function to find out what time it is. Next, pass this value to localtime function to break this value into component pieces.

$a_time = time(); ( $sec, $min, $hour, $mday, $mon, $year, $wday, $yday, $isdst ) = ( localtime($a_time) );

The returned year is the number of years from 1900, so the year 2004 is returned as 104. Boy did this annoy some of my PERL programming friends! I must admit that I used some interesting code in the time_date_str routine, take a look at it. If there is call for it, then I will provide some more information.

File	Changed	Size	Pretty Version	POD Doc	Description
ADPLogger.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:27 PM UTC	32924 bytes	ADPLogger.pm.html	ADPLogger.pm.pod.html	This logger is able to configure itself using a ConfigFileParser, so a simpler configuration method exists. Also, the class is able to limit the log file size and create rolling log files. For example, if the maximum file size is 10K, you may have files named x.log, x.log.1, x.log.2, etc... each of size 10K or less. In this document, I only explain the small logger, but the code is very similar.
BayesianTokenCounter.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:28 PM UTC	43094 bytes	BayesianTokenCounter.pm.html	BayesianTokenCounter.pm.pod.html	I wrote this to parse email files with PMMail. I used the results to classify email as SPAM, or not SPAM.
CommandLineProcessor.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:29 PM UTC	22189 bytes	CommandLineProcessor.pm.html	CommandLineProcessor.pm.pod.html
ConfigFileParser.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:29 PM UTC	20116 bytes	ConfigFileParser.pm.html	ConfigFileParser.pm.pod.html	Read property files of the form "property = value". Many advanced capabilities are supported such as the ability to reference already defined properties. Advanced regular expressions are demonstrated to track things like an even or odd number of preceding escape characters.
DateUtil.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:30 PM UTC	17263 bytes	DateUtil.pm.html	DateUtil.pm.pod.html	Provides easy formatting of dates and times, and also, the conversion of a formatted date and time back to the system representation. See also test_strings_and_dates.pl and test_year_2038.pl.
DeepCopy.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:30 PM UTC	3253 bytes	DeepCopy.pm.html	DeepCopy.pm.pod.html	A hash or array may contain a reference to an object. A hash or array copy continues to reference the original object. This library demonstrates how to copy references as a new object.
SafeGlob.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:30 PM UTC	17079 bytes	SafeGlob.pm.html	SafeGlob.pm.pod.html	The section begins by discussing on creating classes in PERL. The library itself, provides a method to find files and directories using file specs or regular expressions. The returned values can be done recursively.
SmallLogger.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:31 PM UTC	35725 bytes	SmallLogger.pm.html	SmallLogger.pm.pod.html	Simple log class with output to the screen or file. Uses my XMLUtil library, which uses the XML::Parser, for configuration.
SmallLoggerNoXML.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:32 PM UTC	29518 bytes	SmallLoggerNoXML.pm.html	SmallLoggerNoXML.pm.pod.html	The SmallLogger, but without XML capabilities. For many things, this is sufficient, and you do not need to install the XML::Parser. This library is not listed or described in this document.
SocketUtil.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:32 PM UTC	32282 bytes	SocketUtil.pm.html	SocketUtil.pm.pod.html	Demonstrates how to read and write sockets with many details abstracted away. I found this library particularly useful for writing test harnesses to communicate with socket driven programs.
StringUtil.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:33 PM UTC	30883 bytes	StringUtil.pm.html	StringUtil.pm.pod.html	String type utilities to format, remove space, and display numbers with leading zeros. Unexpected methods provide the ability to find the maximum width of all strings in an array or hash, or the ability to convert any object to a string.
XMLUtil.pm	December 11, 2009 10:36:33 PM UTC	15244 bytes	XMLUtil.pm.html	XMLUtil.pm.pod.html	Convert arbitrary objects to and from XML. I am not certain how useful the library is, but it demonstrates how to recognize object types.