Re: CGI Help Guide

[marow]

Don't know if this appropriate or not, but I have recently been working a lot with cgi and mysql and after a certain amount of debugging hassle all sql statements were moved to a subroutine enabling us to see 1) what we actually tried to run 2) how long , how many records 3) any error returned

print "\nadding url $addurl to table sajter";
&runsql("insert into ah reason='updated' add=$serverid") 
print "->\n";    #end debug info

sub runsql {
my $myquery=$_[0];
my $exitonerror=$_[1] if($_[1]);
my $starttime=time();
unless($dbh){
$sqldebug .= "\nTry SQL: connect to db $hostname, 'uptime_admin'";
$dbh = Mysql->Connect($hostname, 'uptime_admin', 'loguser', 'poopypant
+s') or die "Can not connect to db\nINFO: $sqldebug";
$sqldebug .= "\nConnect OK'";
}
$sqldebug .= "\nTry $myquery";
$runsql_sth = $dbh->query($myquery);
my $endtime=time();
if($runsql_sth){
$numrows=$runsql_sth->affectedrows;
$sqldebug .= " - $numrows rows";
}else{
$errmsg = $dbh->errmsg();
$sqldebug .= "\n -- ERROR --   '$errmsg' ";
if($exitonerror){
die "severe SQL error occurred INFO: $sqldebug";
}
}
$sqldebug .= sprintf " -- Done in %d secs ",$endtime-$starttime;
return $runsql_sth;
}

[tilly]

You will find your code easier to read if you pick a consistent indentation style and stick to it. What exactly you pick, hanging vs inline braces, etc doesn't so much matter as long as the indent is in the range 2-4 spaces and the style is consistent. If you do that then it is possible to see the logical structure of the code at a glance, which greatly simplifies understanding it.

Also the better way to do the above is to have a logging function that you pass messages to. By default it would do nothing, but turn on a flag and you get a useful debugging trace out...