http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=184761


in reply to Can I clean this up??

First off consider what the if statement is doing:
open(FIL,">>$myfil") || die "No open for ct tot: $! \n"; if($ct == 1){ print FIL "\n$ct is down at this time.\n"; } elsif($ct >= 2){ print FIL "\n$ct are not available at this time.\n"; } system("mailx -s 'Mail header' myemail < $myfil"); close(FIL);

Secondly consider using a pipe instead of writing to a file:
open(MAIL,"|mailx blah) || die "No mail stuff: $! \n"; if($ct == 1){ print MAIL "\n$ct is down at this time.\n"; } elsif($ct >= 2){ print MAIL "\n$ct are not available at this time.\n"; } close(MAIL);
Try some common Perl tricks:
# Removed brackets, replaced || with or due to higher presedence and r +eadability # used single quotes on uninterpolated strings. open MAIL,'|mailx blah' or die "No mail stuff: $!\n"; # Stuck the if statements at the end so it's more natural. print MAIL "\n$ct is down at this time.\n" if $ct == 1; print MAIL "\n$ct are not available at this time.\n" if $ct >= 2; close(MAIL);

What? more elegant?.....um, it's arguable.
open(MAIL,"|mailx blah) || die "No mail stuff: $! \n"; SWITCH: { $ct >= 2 && { print MAIL "\n$ct are not available at this time.\n +"; last SWITCH }; $ct == 1 && { print MAIL "\n$ct is down at this time.\n"; last SW +ITCH }; } close(MAIL);

--

Brother Frankus.

¤

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Can I clean this up??
by PhiRatE (Monk) on Jul 24, 2002 at 21:59 UTC
    Nice work. Lets add a bit of holistic consideration. What exactly is he trying to achieve? well, very simply it's a plural translation within english. In those instances where more than one system is down, he wishes to maintain a correct english sentence.

    We thus minimise our code duplication like this (perl):

    open(MAIL,"|mailx blah") || die "No mail stuff: $! \n"; if ($ct>0) { print MAIL "\n$ct ".($ct>1 ? "are not available" : "is down")." at + this time.\n"; } close(MAIL);

    But of course the greatest optimisation is always achieved by considering the whole problem, not just the perl:

    open(MAIL,"|mailx blah") || die "No mail stuff: $! \n"; print MAIL "\nSystems unavailable at this time: $ct\n" if ($ct>0) close(MAIL);

    Silly I know, but to the point: Good optimisation looks at the whole problem.

Re: Re: Can I clean this up??
by Anonymous Monk on Jul 24, 2002 at 12:03 UTC
    Wow, thanks for all the suggestions! Now I can make it look better.