Perl - Add and Modify HTML with pQuery - html

I'm just a hobbyist Perl programmer learning pQuery and using a local HTML file to aid the process. Here is what I have so far:
use strict;
use warnings;
use pQuery;
my $filename = 'learn.html';
my $file = pQuery($filename);
my $metadesc = pQuery("meta", $file)->eq(2);
my $title = $file->find('title');
my $h1 = $file->find('h1')->find('a');
my $h2 = $file->find('h2')->eq(0);
$title->html('New Title');
$h1->html('New Heading');
$h2->html('New Sub-Heading');
However, I've hit a bit of a wall and can't quite work out what to do next. What I'd like to do:
Modify the "Content" attribute of $metadesc;
Add a p inside a div immediately after $h2;

If it were jQuery, I would say 1. use the .attr() method to update the attributes of $metadesc and 2. use the insertAfter method.
But as the module says, it's under construction and "This module is still being written. The documented methods all work as documented (but may not be completed ports of their jQuery counterparts yet)." So those methods may not be implemented yet.

Related

Extracting values from hash created by perl JSON::Syck::Load

I've got a very simple Perl issue that I can't for the life of me figure out.
I'm consuming JSON formatted data from a REST endpoint in a perl script. The data is shaped like this:
{
"ScriptRunning": true
}
There's some other stuff, but really all I care about is the ScriptRunning tag. I'm consuming this data using JSON::Syck::Load like so:
my $running_scripts = JSON::Syck::Load($output_from_rest_call)
(in my current environment it is not possible to get other libraries for CPAN, so I'm stuck with that). All that is working correctly as far as I can tell, I used Data::Dumper to confirm the data looks good:
$VAR1 = {
'ScriptRunning' => 1 # or '' if false
}
However, I can't figure out how to actually get the value of 'ScriptRunning'. I've done print ref $running_scripts and confirmed that it is a HASH, however when I try to index into the hash I'm not getting anything. I've tried the following:
my $script_is_running = $running_scripts{'ScriptRunning'};
my $script_is_running = $running_scripts{ScriptRunning};
my $keys_in_running_scripts = keys $running_scripts; # keys_in_running_scripts is empty
my $keys_in_running_scripts = keys %running_scripts; # keys_in_running_scripts is empty
Any ideas?
You need to use strict; (and use warnings; while you are at it, maybe use diagnostics; too, when you are really stuck). As a general rule, ALWAYS use strict; and use warnings; because they prevent problematic code from running and give you some much more helpful output.
You should also read perldoc perlreftut, which helps explain what you are dealing with.
Your variable $running_scripts is not a hash, but a "hash reference", which is an important distinction. When you call ref on a real hash, it returns a false value, since it is not a reference.
What you need to do is "dereference" using the arrow operator to get the value.
To get the keys call to work, there's a separate syntax for dereferencing.
my $script_is_running = $running_scripts->{ScriptRunning};
my #keys_in_running_scripts = keys %{$running_scripts};

Can I use macros while defining postfix template?

I assume it's possible, cause there is 'foo'.var and it expands to $foo = 'var';, so there has to be some way.
What i'm trying to do is to create a template that does the following:
FooBar.new -> $fooBar = new FooBar();.
The best what I had by far is:
$$$EXPR$ = new $EXPR$();, which behaves like this:
FooBar.new -> $FooBar = new FooBar();.
It's almost what I want, but the variable name is capitalized. I've tried with suggestVariableName taken from Template Macros, but I guess it only works inside live templates or I don't know how to use it for postfix completion.
UPDATE
I've found a really cool plugin, which does what I need. Kudos to the author!

Perl: JSON fails if a thread is started

Can someone please tell my why JSON is not working if some thread is started?
use strict;
use warnings;
use JSON;
use threads;
use threads::shared;
sub th { }
threads->create(\&th)->join() if $ARGV[0];
my $json = to_json({ val => "123"}); # WTF?!?
print "$json\n";
Works fine and prints the JSON-string. But pass 1 as an argument to the script to create the thread and to_json will fail with
hash- or arrayref expected (not a simple scalar, use allow_nonref to allow this)
Same effect if I use encode_json insead.
On the manpage of JSON the word thread is not present and I see no reason why a thread should harm an outside string-conversion.
???
JSON(.pm) is just a front end for JSON::PP, JSON::XS or Cpanel::JSON::XS.
You have found a bug in JSON::XS. About this, JSON::XS's documentation says:
(I-)THREADS
This module is not guaranteed to be ithread (or MULTIPLICITY-) safe and there are no plans to change this. Note that perl's builtin so-called theeads/ithreads are officially deprecated and should not be used.
[Note that the last part is incorrect. The official position is actually: Threads are hard, so you should use something else instead. It's highly questionable since the alternatives are arguably just as hard.]
Workaround: Use one of the other backends (directly or via JSON(.pm)).
$ PERL_JSON_BACKEND=JSON::XS 46793885 0
{"val":"123"}
$ PERL_JSON_BACKEND=JSON::XS 46793885 1
hash- or arrayref expected (not a simple scalar, use allow_nonref to allow this) at /home/ikegami/usr/perlbrew/perls/5.26.0t/lib/site_perl/5.26.0/JSON.pm line 170.
$ PERL_JSON_BACKEND=Cpanel::JSON::XS 46793885 1
{"val":"123"}
$ PERL_JSON_BACKEND=JSON::PP 46793885 1
{"val":"123"}
You can control this within the script by adding the following before loading JSON:
BEGIN { $ENV{PERL_JSON_BACKEND} = 'Cpanel::JSON::XS' }
I ran into this as well (trying to use JSON with multi-threaded perl). Without launching a background thread, my code worked fine, but got the same error you are getting when there was a thread launched.
Like you, I didn't find any help online specific to threading with regards to this error text. However, following the allow_nonref error text, I found the following in JSON::XS's documentation:
"OLD" VS. "NEW" JSON (RFC 4627 VS. RFC 7159)
TL;DR: Due to security concerns, JSON::XS will not allow scalar data in JSON >texts by default - you need to create your own JSON::XS object and enable
allow_nonref:
my $json = JSON::XS->new->allow_nonref;
$text = $json->encode ($data);
$data = $json->decode ($text);
In your case, you are trying to call to_json, which internally creates a JSON object and calls encode on it. Unfortunately it doesn't specify allow_nonref in its constructor. So to make your code work, you can do something like this:
use JSON::XS;
my $json_obj = JSON::XS->new->allow_nonref;
my $json = $json_obj->encode({ val => "123"});
print "$json\n";
I came up with this solution before reading the other responses here, so those may be better solutions, but this should at least get you past the issue with minimal changes.
This is definitely to do with JSON and global state.
If you require and import JSON, after the thread invocation, it 'works'.
The warning in the module for JSON::XS includes:
(I-)THREADS ^
This module is not guaranteed to be ithread (or MULTIPLICITY-) safe and there are no plans to change this
The 'workaround' for a not-thread-safe module is to not load it via use (which happens at 'compile' time) and instead require and import (at runtime) after the parallel instances of the program (threads) have been started.
E.g.:
use strict;
use warnings;
use threads;
use threads::shared;
sub th { }
my $th = threads->create( \&th )->join;
## Just inside main thread
##can do this within individual threads instead if desired
require JSON;
JSON->import;
my $json = to_json({ val => "123" }); # WTF?!?
print "\n$json\n";

passing variables to perl script from html

I am trying to call a perl script from my HTML page. The way am trying to do is to call the url of the perl script located on the server.
Here is the piece of code:
HTML:
var fname = "Bob";
var url='http://xxx.com:30000/cgi-bin/abc.pl?title=fname';
window.open(url,"_self");
The way am trying to retrieve it in perl as:
Perl:
print "$ARGV[0]\n";
Now, I have 3 questions:
I think this is the correct way to pass the variables but am not able to print the argument in perl.
If i want to pass another variable lname, how do i append it to the url?
My window.open should open the output in the same window, since it uses the parameter _self. Still it doesn't.
Could anybody point out the problems?
Thanks,
Buzz
No #ARGV contains command line arguments and will be empty.
You need the CGI module
use warnings;
use strict;
use CGI;
my $query = CGI->new;
print $query->param( 'title' );
Edit:
Take a look at dan1111's answer on how to generate HTML and display it in the browser.
In addition to what Matteo said, a simple print statement is not enough to send some output to the browser.
Please see a recent answer I wrote giving a sample CGI script with output.
In regard to your other issues:
Variables are appended to a url separated with &:
var url='http://xxx.com:30000/cgi-bin/abc.pl?title=fname&description=blah';
Based on this question, perhaps you should try window.location.href = url; instead (though that doesn't explain why your code isn't working).
There are two different environments that each pass variables two different ways. The command line can pass variables through the #ARGV and the browser can pass variables through #ENV. It doesn't matter what language you use, those are the arrays that you will have to employ.

Display output in HTML format by perl

I have a hashmap with some information(key and value) in a perl file. I want to display them in HTML output and each displayed (key, value) will link to something. When I click the link then there will be some information there.
Anyone suggests me how can I do that. Is this similar to creating a CGI file and use CGI.pm? I will update more detail on this question later.
Yes, you can use the excellent CGI module to render HTML content for you, even if you are not processing CGI forms (i.e. use the module only on output, rather than also for input processing):
use CGI;
my $q = CGI->new;
my #html_list = map {
$q->li($_ . ": " . $hash{$_};
} keys %hash;
print $q->ul($q->li({-type=>'foo'}, #html_list);
Depending on the data you're trying to display, something like HTML::Table may be useful if you want to display it in tabular format and don't want the drugery of assembling the appropriate HTML yourself.
For instance, you could do something like:
my $table = HTML::Table->new(-columns => 2);
for my $key (sort keys %hash) {
$table->addRow($key, $hash{$key});
}
$table->print;
Also, there is a free Beginning Perl book available online, which has a chapter devoted to CGI scripts, along with a lot of other useful information.
If this is more than just a simple one-off script, you might also wish to consider using one of the many Perl web frameworks like Dancer, Catalyst, Mojo etc.