James Edward Gray II wrote: > > Okay, I have a very simple script that needs to keep track of a counter > between runs (the only piece of persistent information). I thought it > might be simple to just store this counter after __DATA__, instead of > creating an entire config file to hold one number. That leads to my > questions. > > First, is this logic okay? Any big reasons I shouldn't do this? > > Second, HOW do I do this? I'm guessing I somehow need to activate > inplace editing or something similar, then use something like > s/^Document_Number:(\d+)$/$1 + 1/e. Do I need to reopen DATA > differently first? > > Third, I may need to pull the number more than once during execution. > Do I use a seek(DATA, 0, 0) to go back? Won't that actually put me at > the beginning of my whole script? Is there a simple way I can just go > back to __DATA__? > > And Finally, I need to protect against multiple executions changing it > at once. I just flock() my script while I'm changing it to handle > that, right? > > Thanks in advance for any advice you can share. I've just never tried > anything like this before.
Hi James. My advice is simply to forget it. Open an 'entire' config file with a single record containing a single number. The DATA file handle is opened read-only and, while it's possible to reopen it for read/write, you would be writing a self-modifying program which is frowned upon in all circles except AI. For a production program I would make it nice by writing a comment header saying what the config file is for, and a label for the number in case you want to add further persistent values. HTH, Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
