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Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl

Alpha1980
Novice

Feb 19, 2007, 2:48 PM

Post #1 of 9 (672 views)

Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl	Can't Post

If I have a web form that submits the following variables to Perl CGI:

Code

$title 
$surname 
$firstname

I want to:

1.) Create a .txt file with the name $surname*datestamp*.txt
2.) Append that .txt file with tab delimited data as follows:

Code

Title Surname First Name 
$title $surname $firstname

3.) Send it to an email address

Is this a lot to ask?

Thanks in advance!

KevinR
Veteran

Feb 19, 2007, 3:14 PM

Post #2 of 9 (671 views)

Re: [Alpha1980] Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl [In reply to]	Can't Post

This is not a script writing service, it's a help forum. What have you tried?
-------------------------------------------------

Alpha1980
Novice

Feb 19, 2007, 3:49 PM

Post #3 of 9 (670 views)

Re: [KevinR] Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl [In reply to]	Can't Post

Sorry Kevin.

I haven't got as far as the timestamp or email yet.

Code

#!/usr/bin/perl 
 
use CGI; 
 
$query = new CGI; 
 
@names = $query->param; 
 
$title = $query->param(title); 
$surname = $query->param(surname); 
$firstname = $query->param(firstname); 
 
open(TEXT,+<$surname.txt.); 
printf TEXT "Title"\t"Surname"\t"First Name"\n; 
printf TEXT ($title)\t($surname)\t($firstname)\n; 
close (TEXT);

PGScooter
stranger

Feb 19, 2007, 4:34 PM

Post #4 of 9 (666 views)

Re: [Alpha1980] Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi Alpha 1980,

first of all, I don't know why you do that to append. Perhaps that works; I'm not sure. I would do it like this: open(INFILE,">>whatever.txt") or die "can't open the txt file";

as for the timestamp, look into (look into meaning look in a book or do a google search) the localtime function.

finally, for the email, I would suggest looking into "sendmail". I'm not sure, however, how you can send files through an email; I've never tried it.

Also I'm curious, what does this part of your code do?

Code

@names = $query->param;

Try to write as much code as you can for those things (I'm guessing you should spend at least 3 hours reading and experimenting with code), post what you can do, and I'll see if I can help you some more after that.
The more you teach me, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I teach.

KevinR
Veteran

Feb 19, 2007, 5:21 PM

Post #5 of 9 (664 views)

Re: [Alpha1980] Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl [In reply to]	Can't Post

Code

#!/usr/bin/perl  
use strict; 
use warnings;  
use CGI;  
  
my $query = new CGI;  
  
my $title = $query->param('title');  
my $surname = $query->param('surname');  
my $firstname = $query->param('firstname');  
  
open(TEXT,">>$surname".time. '.txt') or die "$!";  
print TEXT "Title\tSurname\tFirst Name\n";  
print TEXT "($title)\t($surname)\t($firstname)\n";  
close (TEXT); 
 
send to email stuff here

if you get stuck on the emailing part post more questions.
-------------------------------------------------

Alpha1980
Novice

Feb 24, 2007, 6:12 PM

Post #6 of 9 (625 views)

Re: [KevinR] Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks Scooter and Kevin. I'd never get anywhere without you guys.

Here is where I am at:

Code

#!/usr/bin/perl 
 
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; 
print "<html><h1>Hello!</h1></html>\n"; 
 
use strict; 
use warnings; 
use CGI; 
 
my $query = new CGI; 
 
my $title = $query->param('title'); 
my $surname = $query->param('surname'); 
my $firstname = $query->param('firstname'); 
 
open(TEXT,">>$surname".time. '.txt') or die "$!"; 
print TEXT "Title\tSurname\tFirst Name\n"; 
print TEXT "$title\t$surname\t$firstname\n"; 
close (TEXT); 
 
use MIME::Lite; 
 
# set up email 
$to = "standard\@example.co.uk"; 
$from = "admin\@example.co.uk"; 
$subject = "Email Sent via Perl"; 
$message = "This email was sent using Perl."; 
$file = "$surname".time. '.txt'"; 
 
# send email 
email($to, $from, $subject, $message, $file); 
 
# email function 
sub email 
{ 
 # get incoming parameters 
 local ($to, $from, $subject, $message, $file) = @_; 
 
 # create a new message 
 $msg = MIME::Lite->new( 
  From => $from, 
  To => $to, 
  Subject => $subject, 
  Data => $message 
 ); 
 
 # add the attachment 
 $msg->attach( 
  Type => "text/plain", 
  Path => $file, 
  Filename => $file, 
  Disposition => "attachment" 
 ); 
 
 # send the email 
 MIME::Lite->send('smtp', 'mail.example.co.uk', Timeout => 60); 
 $msg->send(); 
}

I know that the code to create the file works and the code to send the email works but getting them to work together is a problem.

I hope it is something simple.

(This post was edited by Alpha1980 on Feb 24, 2007, 6:13 PM)

KevinR
Veteran

Feb 24, 2007, 7:40 PM

Post #7 of 9 (620 views)

Re: [Alpha1980] Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl [In reply to]	Can't Post

first thing to do is declare all your undeclared variables with "my", for example:

Code

my $to = "standard\@example.co.uk";

-------------------------------------------------

Alpha1980
Novice

Feb 25, 2007, 7:59 AM

Post #8 of 9 (614 views)

Re: [KevinR] Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks once again Kevin. :)

I've got it working with the following code:

Code

#!/usr/bin/perl 
 
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; 
print "<html><h1>Hello!</h1></html>\n"; 
 
use strict; 
use warnings; 
use CGI; 
 
my $query = new CGI; 
 
my $title = $query->param('title'); 
my $surname = $query->param('surname'); 
my $firstname = $query->param('firstname'); 
 
open(TEXT,">>$surname".time. '.txt') or die "$!"; 
print TEXT "Title\tSurname\tFirst Name\n"; 
print TEXT "$title\t$surname\t$firstname\n"; 
close (TEXT); 
 
use MIME::Lite; 
 
# set up email 
my $to = "standard\@example.co.uk"; 
my $from = "admin\@example.co.uk"; 
my $subject = "$surname".time; 
my $message = "This email was sent from Perl"; 
my $file = "$surname".time.".txt"; 
 
# send email 
email($to, $from, $subject, $message, $file); 
 
# email function 
sub email 
{ 
 
 # create a new message 
 my $msg = MIME::Lite->new( 
  From => $from, 
  To => $to, 
  Subject => $subject, 
  Data => $message 
 ); 
 
 # add the attachment 
 $msg->attach( 
  Type => "text/plain", 
  Path => $file, 
  Filename => $file, 
  Disposition => "attachment" 
 ); 
 
 # send the email 
 MIME::Lite->send('smtp', 'mail.example.co.uk', Timeout => 60); 
 $msg->send(); 
}

I've taken out this piece of code:

Code

{  
 # get incoming parameters  
 local ($to, $from, $subject, $message, $file) = @_;

because it was returning the error:

Quote

Can't localize lexical variable $to at test.pl

and I wasn't sure what that mean't or what this code even does.

Anyway, there is one final thing I need to do. I have the following script which generates a .pdf containing $title, $surname and $firstname.

Code

#!/usr/bin/perl 
 
use CGI; 
 
$query = new CGI; 
 
@names = $query->param; 
 
$title = $query->param(title); 
$surname = $query->param(surname); 
$firstname = $query->param(firstname); 
 
$message =~ s/\r//g; 
$message =~ s/\n\n/<br\/><br\/>/g; 
 
    print "Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=\"letter.pdf\"\n"; 
    print "Content-type: application/pdf\n\n"; 
 
    if (! open(PRINCE, "| /usr/bin/prince -")) 
    { 
        print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n"; 
        print "Error starting Prince\n"; 
        exit; 
    } 
    print "Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=\"letter.pdf\"\n"; 
    print "Content-type: application/pdf\n\n"; 
    $margin="0"; 
 
 
print PRINCE <<"EOF"; 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> 
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> 
<head> 
<style> 
\@page { 
  size: letter; 
  margin: 10% 15%; 
} 
\@media screen { 
  body { margin: 3em } 
} 
div.letter { 
  text-align: center; 
  font: bold 17pt "Lega", "Georgia", serif; 
  margin-bottom: 3em; 
} 
body { font: 11pt "Gill Sans", "Chantilly", "Georgia", sans-serif } 
 
/* IE6 and older does not support the 'white-space' property. In other 
browsers, the line below can be uncommented and those pesky <br/> tags 
can be removed */ 
/* div.letter { white-space: pre } */ 
</style> 
</head> 
 
<body> 
<div class="letter"> 
$title<br/> 
$surname<br/> 
$firstname<br/> 
</div> 
</body> 
</html> 
EOF 
 
close PRINCE;

I want to add three radio inputs to the webform that produces $title, $surname and $firstname.

The first radio should create the .txt file and send the email.
The second radio should create the .pdf.
And the third radio should do both.

I'd really appreciate a push in the right direction because I don't know where to start with this one.

Many Thanks :)

davorg
Thaumaturge / Moderator

Mar 1, 2007, 5:34 AM

Post #9 of 9 (590 views)

Re: [Alpha1980] Create and amend tab delimited .txt from Perl [In reply to]	Can't Post

Please add "use strict" and "use warnings" to your program. They are there to stop you shooting yourself in the foot.

Also, if you're using the CGI module, then your life will be easier if you use the "header" function to produce your CGI headers.

--
Dave Cross, Perl Hacker, Trainer and Writer
http://www.dave.org.uk/
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