sybperl-l Archive

From: Michael Peppler <mpeppler at MBAY dot NET>
Subject: RE: Using sybperl with cgi
Date: Feb 16 1999 8:04PM

>>>>> "Sheree" == Sheree Hemphill  writes:

Sheree> I did check the error log & it said the following:
Sheree> [16/Feb/1999:13:54:29] failure (15929): for host
Sheree> gene22797.GENE.CWRU.Edu trying to GET
Sheree> /cgi-bin/sah18/biares3.cgi, cgieng_scan_headers reports: the
Sheree> CGI program /var/www/htdocs/helix/cgi-bin/sah18/biares3.cgi
Sheree> did not produce a valid header (name without value: got line
Sheree> "use of uninitialized value at
Sheree> /var/www/htdocs/helix/cgi-bin/sah18/biares3.cgi line 25.")
>>  I *hate* web servers that direct STDERR messages ("use of
>> uninitialized value") to STDOUT and create this problem!

Sheree> Is there a way to change this somehow in the web server
Sheree> configuration?  Or is this just something I will have to live
Sheree> with?

I don't know. What web server are you using?

The only web server I know somewhat is Apache, and it definitely does
not do this!


>> Short term solution: remove the -w from the !#/usr/local/bin/perl
>> line at the top of your script.

>> The warning comes from perl - there's (probably) a NULL value in
>> your query result. When you print it out perl (with -w turned on)
>> prints this warning.

Sheree> This worked!  Yes, for some of the variables, some of the
Sheree> records do have null values.  Is there a way to still get the
Sheree> warning messages -- to route them to a file or something?

Not that I know of (which is not the same as saying that there is no
solution!) 


>>  One other thing that you should probably do is to turn off the
>> buffering of STDOUT. Place this near the top of your script:
>> 
>> select(STDOUT); $| = 1;
>> 

Sheree> What does adding this line change (sorry for my newness at
Sheree> this)?

STDERR is usually unbuffered, while STDOUT is usually buffered. This
means that although you had the

print header();

call first in the script, the warning message (generated by perl, on
STDERR) got to the web server first because STDOUT is buffered. 

By setting $| = 1 you unbuffer STDOUT, and this will (probably)
guarantee that your header will be seen by the web server first.

Michael