uninitialized value in concatenation (.)

[philosophia]

I'm having trouble with this subroutine. It worked when the script was strictly procedural, but now that I'm trying to divide it into subroutines I get the error

[Tue Jun 06 14:53:09 2006] [error] [client x.x.x.x] [Tue Jun  6 14:53:
+09 2006] bulkmailers-request.pl: Use of uninitialized value in concat
+enation (.) or string at /usr/lib/cgi-bin/bulkmailers-request.pl line
+ 56., referer: http://tangerine/cgi-bin/bulkmailers-request.pl
[Tue Jun 06 14:53:09 2006] [error] [client x.x.x.x] [Tue Jun  6 14:53:
+09 2006] bulkmailers-request.pl: readline() on unopened filehandle at
+ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/bulkmailers-request.pl line 57., referer: http://ta
+ngerine/cgi-bin/bulkmailers-request.pl

-the error msgs reference these lines

$filename=~m/^.*(\\|\/)(.*)/; # strip the remote path and keep the fil
+ename
my ($newfilename) = $1;

open(LOCAL, ">/var/www/html/upload/".$newfilename);

sub process_form
{

my ($from_address) = $query->param('from');
my ($reply_to_address) = $query->param('reply_to');
my ($subject) = $query->param('subject');
my ($message) = $query->param('message');
my ($description) = $query->param('description');
my ($msg_month) = $query->param('msg_month');
my ($msg_day) = $query->param('msg_day');
my ($msg_year) = $query->param('msg_year');
my ($from_address2) = '[e-mail]';
my ($to_address) = '[e-mail]';
my ($mail_host) = 'smtp.uchicago.edu';

if ( validate_form (  $from_address, $reply_to_address, $subject, $mes
+sage, $description, $msg_month, $msg_day, $msg_year ) )
{

my ($filename) = $query->param('email_list');
$filename=~m/^.*(\\|\/)(.*)/; # strip the remote path and keep the fil
+ename
my ($newfilename) = $1;

open(LOCAL, ">/var/www/html/upload/".$newfilename);
while(<$filename>) {
    print LOCAL $_;
}

my ($mm) = new File::MMagic; # use internal magic file
my ($res) = $mm->checktype_contents("/var/www/html/upload/".$filename)
+;

# Adjust subject and body message
my ($message_body) = "Request submission\rFrom: ".$from_address."\rRep
+ly_to: ".$reply_to_address."\rSubject: ".$subject."\rMessage:\r\r".$m
+essage."\r\rRecipients: ".$description."\r\rDate message is to be sen
+t: ".$msg_month."/".$msg_day."/".$msg_year;  # Create the multipart c
+ontainer my ($msg) = MIME::Lite->new (   From => $from_address2,   To
+ => $to_address,   Subject => $subject,   Type =>'multipart/mixed' ) 
+or die "Error creating multipart container: $!\n";  # Add the text me
+ssage part $msg->attach (   Type => 'TEXT',   Data => $message_body )
+ or die "Error adding the text message part: $!\n";  # Add the file $
+msg->attach (    Type => $res,    Path => '/var/www/html/upload',    
+Filename => $filename,    Disposition => 'attachment' ) or die "Error
+ adding $filename: $!\n";  # Send the Message MIME::Lite->send('smtp'
+, $mail_host, Timeout=>60); $msg->send;  print $query->header; print 
+"<b>Thank you!</b><br>Confirmation of your submission will be emailed
+ to you.";  } }

[graff]

Regarding the first error (uninitialized value in concatenation at line 56), the previous replies are good, and I can suggest some other ways to do what you want:

# like this:

(my $newfile = $filename ) =~ s{.*[\\/]}{};
    # if there is no (back)slash, $newfile will be same as $filename

# or like this:

my @path = split /[\/\\]/, $filename;
my $newfile = pop @path;

# or use File::Basename, if that's appropriate to your needs

As for the second error (readline() on unopened filehandle at ... line 57) I would guess that line 57 is this one:

while(<$filename>) {

You are supposed to put an open file handle inside the "diamond" operator -- not a scalar string that holds the file name. Do something like this instead:

open( IN, $filename ) or die "$filename: $!";
while (<IN>) {

[dsheroh]

As written, $1 will receive the directory separator from (\\|\/) rather than the filename. Also, I find it a good practice to avoid using .* where possible. Finally, you need some sort of error handling for when the match fails.

Taking these three things into account, I would rewrite the two lines which extract the filename as:

$filename =~ m/^.*(\\|\/)([^\\\/]*)$/;
my $newfilename = $2 || die "Filename $filename failed to match!\n";

(Although in the real world, you'd probably want to attempt to recover gracefully from the failed match rather than dying...)

[socketdave]

Make sure that your regex is actually matching and putting something into $newfilename. The error is pretty descriptive.

Try printing out $filename inside your sub to make sure that it has what you expect in it.