| Perl Doctor | So! What brings you in this morning, Mr. —Monk? |
Just Another Perl
Hypochondriac | Well, Doctor, you see, I have this module... |
| Perl Dr. | A swollen module, perhaps? |
| JAPH | Eh? Oh, no, it's quite small, actually... If anything, too small... |
| Perl Dr. | Too small... Hmmm... |
| JAPH | It's called Update, and... |
| Perl Dr. | I see. And when you run perl -c Update.pm you get errors, right? |
| JAPH | Oh, no, no errors at all Doctor, but... |
| Perl Dr. | ...warnings? |
| JAPH | N-no, no warnings either, but... |
| Perl Dr. | ...run-time errors, then. |
| JAPH | No, the module works, but... |
| Perl Dr. | (somewhat exasperated)...but it takes too long, is that it? |
| JAPH | No, but... |
| Perl Dr. | ...eats up too much memory? |
| JAPH | No, it works perfectly, but... |
| Perl Dr. | (with ill-concealed irritation) Congratulations, Mr. Monk! But let's get back to the reason for your visit, shall we? |
| JAPH | Well, you see, it's this module Update I was telling you about... |
| Perl Dr. | But by your description this module is in perfectly good health, Mr. Monk! |
| JAPH | The thing is... this module is very specialized... |
| Perl Dr. | How so, Mr. Monk? |
| JAPH | Well, hmmm, you see, Update exports only one subroutine... |
| Perl Dr. | Oh, there's nothing wrong with that, Mr. Monk! |
| JAPH | ...called update... |
| Perl Dr. | Hmm, Update::update... Did you ever read Lolita, Mr. Monk? |
| JAPH | Lo—what? |
| Perl Dr. | Never mind, never mind... (Brief pause) Well, certainly, Update::update is not a terribly imaginative choice of names, but it's nothing to send you to the || for! (Winks) |
| JAPH | Yes, but, you see, Update::update does some very specialized things, and... |
| Perl Dr. | Hmph. OK. Let's take a look at this Update::update, Mr. Monk... |
| JAPH |
sub update {
my ( $url, $dir ) = @_;
my @possible_suffixes = qw( .gz .bz2 );
my $basename = extract_basename( $url, @possible_suffixes );
my $local_file = "$dir/$basename";
|
| Perl Dr. | (mumbling) Takes a URL and a directory as args, m-kay... Extracts a basename from the URL, mm-kay... Oh, I see, maybe the URL points to a compressed file, mmm-kay... Generates a local filename from the basename and the input dir, mmmm-kay... |
| JAPH | return if -e $local_file and not is_newer( $url, $local_file );
|
| Perl Dr. | (mumbling) ...returns undef if a local version of the file exists and the remote version is not newer, good, good... |
| JAPH | my $temp_file = download( $url, TEMP_DIR ) or die "download of $url
+failed";
|
| Perl Dr. | (mumbling) ...downloads remote file to a temporary location, very good,... |
| JAPH | if ( -e $local_file ) {
my $new_name = rename_file( $local_file, suffix( time ) );
compress( $new_name );
}
|
| Perl Dr. | (mumbling) Renames the local copy, if any, mmmmm-kay... Oh, I see, the new name has an extension based on the current time... mmmmmm-kay... Compresses the renamed local copy, fine... |
| JAPH | move_file( $temp_file, $local_file );
maybe_uncompress( $local_file );
|
| Perl Dr. | (mumbling) Moves the downloaded file to its final destination, and uncompresses it if necessary, all good... |
| JAPH |
return 1;
}
|
| Perl Dr. | (mumbling) ...returns 1 upon successful completion... mmm-kay! It looks fine, Mr. Monk! What are you concerned about? |
| JAPH | (increasingly agitated) But don't you see what I mean?? It's so specialized, and... |
| Perl Dr. | OK, OK, Mr. Monk, I see that Update::update is a somewhat specialized little function, but let's not jump to conclusions. Why don't you tell me more about Update::update's role in your life? |
| JAPH | I use it to download data files from various sites; these data files are then used to generate secondary data files that are in turn used by several of my CGI scripts. I have these maintenance scripts, you see, run nightly by cron, they all use Update::update... |
| Perl Dr. | It seems quite suitable for the task, Mr. Monk! So what if Update::update is a little specialized... I still don't understand the reason for your... |
| JAPH | IT'S NOT NORMAL! |
| Perl Dr. | Now, now, calm down, Mr. Monk. This is nothing to be upset ab— |
| JAPH | Every module I know of gets used all over the place, in different settings, but since I wrote it three years ago, Update has been used only in those few scripts run by cron every night, all very similar to each other, and... and... |
| Perl Dr. | Re-lax, Mr. Monk. Let me reassure you, there is nothing... |
| JAPH | (visibly conflicted) But don't you think it's weird to use a module here? Shouldn't I be using a script to do all this, and call this script from other scripts using system? |
| Perl Dr. | (continuing unperturbed)...to worry about. Your module is working fine. It is producing the desired results. You should be happy! |
| JAPH | (mumbling) Yes, but... |
| Perl Dr. | (leading JAPH to the door) I suggest that you put this out of your mind, my friend. Go home, have a good night sleep. Just relax, mmm-kay? Everything will be fine. |
| JAPH | OK, I will, ...but — |
| Perl Dr. | Have a nice day, Mr. Monk. |
| JAPH | (as the door closes)...but I want a SECOND OPINION! |
curtain
Erratum extirpated. Thanks to the gimlet-eyed Dr. Zaxo.
Update 2: s/Dr. Perl/JAPH/ on one of the lines. Thanks to ambrus and castaway.
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