sybperl-l Archive

From: mpeppler at itf dot ch (Michael Peppler)
Subject: Re: Problems with writing text
Date: Jan 25 1996 9:18AM

From: mpeppler@itf.ch (Michael Peppler)
> I just ran some tests here, and I got some pretty weird results...

I found the problem - it is the same with both Sybperl 1.x (that you
have Rob) and 2.x (for use with Perl 5) - and the problem is indeed
with &dbwritetext().

What happens is this:
When sybperl calls dbwritetext() internally, it asks the Perl
interpreter for the size of the data buffer that it must write. This
'size' variable returns the internally allocated size, not necessarilly
the actual length of the buffer, so when a variable holding a text
buffer shrinks the &dbwritetext() call doesn't see it.

The work-around: undefine the $text variable before assigning the
buffer to it.

> #!/usr/local/bin/sybperl.old
> # I used the 1.012 version...
> require 'sybperl.pl';
> 
> $d1 = &dblogin('mpeppler', 'guess-what', 'TROLL');
> 
> while(<*>) {
>     open(IN, $_) || die "Can't open $_: $!\n";
>     @lines = ;
###
      undef($text);	#### "KILL" the variable!!!
###
>     $text = "@lines";
>     close(IN);
>     print "Processing $_\n";
>     &dbcmd($d1, "insert story values('$_', '')");
>     &dbsqlexec($d1);
>     while(&dbresults($d1) != $NO_MORE_RESULTS) {
> 	while(@dat = &dbnextrow($d1)) {
> 	    print "@dat\n";
> 	}
>     }
>     &dbcmd($d1, "select name, data from story where name = '$_'");
>     &dbsqlexec($d1);
>     &dbresults($d1);
>     @dat = &dbnextrow($d1);
>     &dbwritetext($d1, "story.data", $d1, 2, $text);
> }

I'll see if I can find a better solution (internally to the C code) for
a future release.

Michael