Softpanorama Perl Bulletin, 2001

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20011010 : Algorithm::Diff ( Algorithm::Diff, Oct 10, 2001 )
• 20010720 : A Tiny Perl Server Pages Engine ( A Tiny Perl Server Pages Engine, Jul 20, 2001 )
• 20010630 : Why Not Translate Perl to C? ( ctoperl )
• 20010617 : Parse::RecDescent ( Parse::RecDescent, Jun 17, 2001 )
• 20010617 : xclip by Kim Saunders ( xclip, )
• 20010617 : showbook.pl ( softpanorama.org, )
• 20010504 : Some useful links ( May 4, 2001 )
• 20010415 : Alex Harford: Writing Your Own Gimp_Perl Scripts ( Alex Harford: Writing Your Own Gimp_Perl Scripts, Apr 15, 2001 )
• 200102 : Password-Protecting Areas of Your Web Site ( login )
• 200102 : DNS Tools: dns_tree is a command-line-based front-end to dig ( DNS Tools: dns_tree is a command-line-based front-end to dig, )
• 200102 : cron.pl ( cron.pl, )

Old News ;-)

[Oct 10, 2001] Algorithm::Diff

Algorithm::Diff will find the differences between two lists or two files. It finds the differences `intelligently': Given two files, it finds the *smallest* set of changes that will turn one file into the other.

Creating Scalable Vector Graphics with Perl

Kip Hampton demonstrates how to use Perl, XML, and SVG to generate useful and attractive graphics dynamically. [XML.com]

[Jul 20, 2001] A Tiny Perl Server Pages Engine

Perl Server Pages is a small-footprint Perl-based cross-platform JSP-like facility for generating dynamic pages. It runs on both UNIX and Windows.

[Jun 30, 2001] Why Not Translate Perl to C?

ctoperl

Why Not Translate Perl to C? Mark-Jason Dominus explains why it might not be any faster to convert your code to a C program rather than let the Perl interpreter execute it.

[Jun 17, 2001] Parse::RecDescent

Parse::RecDescent is a recursive descent parser generator designed to help to Perl programmers who need to deal with any sort of structured data, from configuration files to mail headers to almost anything. It's even been used to parse other programming languages for conversion to Perl. Jeff Goff explains what Parse::RecDescent does, how to build up grammars, and how to use Parse::RecDescent in your programs.

xclip by Kim Saunders

Xclip is a very simple app. Why it wasn't available to Linux users until now is beyond me.

Quite simply, it allows you to place whatever you wish into the clipboard. Period.

A simple example. Suppose you want to send your friend a directory listing; no problem. Just type "ls | xclip" at your nearest console and then middle-click to paste into your email. In fact any program's std out can be piped to xclip: 'whois', 'showbook.pl' whatever.

In combination with a script to grab the currently selected text it becomes even more useful. Suppose you've just typed an unsorted list, but you want it sorted alphabetically. Highlight the list with the mouse, press, say, alt-shift-S and then middle-click to paste in the freshly sorted list! This trick can be used to do any number of things: sum a column of numbers, make banner-style comment blocks, quick-notes...

Here's a python script which uses the wxWindows library to do all of the above. Just attach it to different hotkeys using the appropriate command line switch (e.g. 'clipmanip.py -c' to create comment blocks).

showbook.pl

showbook.pl
by Guido Socher

This little gem is indispensable if you have a lot of bookmarks. showbook.pl parses your Netscape bookmark file and returns the URLs it finds there. In fact, it's so useful that even though I haven't used Netscape in a couple of months I export my bookmarks file from Konqueror every once in a while just so I can keep using it! (nb: Konqueror mangles the syntax slightly, so you'll need to run Netscape once and explicitly save bookmarks to sort things out.)

Here's a sample search using showbook.pl:

[paul@oremus paul]$ showbook.pl wxwin
== Misc ==
<A HREF="http://web.ukonline.co.uk/julian.smart/wxwin/">wxWindows</A>

[May 4, 2001] Some useful links

• ***** A complete online archive of Andrew Johnson's Perl newsletters:
• Managing terabytes of data
• Perl Objects and Regular Expressions

• DBI is OK Chromatic makes a case for using DBI and shows how it works well in the same situations as DBIx::Recordset.

• Being an FTP Client
• Robert's Perl Tutorial -- short and weak
• Introduction to Perl

[Apr 15, 2001] Alex Harford: Writing Your Own Gimp_Perl Scripts

"Once you have become familiar with the basics of Perl, you can move on to creating Perl scripts for the Gimp. This section will outline the creation of a fairly simple script, incidentally, the one I used to create the logos on my homepage. Gimp_Perl is perfect for this.

See also

A Simple Gnome Panel Applet
Build a useful Gnome application in an afternoon! Joe Nasal explains some common techniques, including widget creation, signal handling, timers, and event loops.

You want to connect to an FTP server and get or put files. You might want to automate the one-time transfer of many files or automatically mirror an entire section of an FTP server, for example.Perl-Tk (pedantic) porting pronouncements

Password-Protecting Areas of Your Web Site

Password-Protecting Areas of Your Web Site

login

... ... ...

A Third Solution: Let the Server Do the Work

Yet another solution, one that offers more security, is to let the Apache Web Server do the work through the .htpasswd facility. In essence, you create a simple password file containing names and encrypted passwords, then enable your Web server to look for the file. Once set up, any access to any files within the protected folder must automatically be validated by forcing the user to enter a login/password pair.

To create the password file, I use a simple Perl script that I cobbled together called makepasswd:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "\nMake htpasswd Account Entry...\n\n";
print "User name : ";
chomp($user = <STDIN>);
print "Password : ";
chomp($passwd = <STDIN>);
srand($$|time);
@saltchars=(a..z,A..Z,0..9,'.','/');
$salt=$saltchars[int(rand($#saltchars+1))];
$salt.=$saltchars[int(rand($#saltchars+1))];
$passwdcrypt = crypt($passwd,$salt);
print "\nAdd the following to the htpasswd file:\n\n";
print "\t$user:$passwdcrypt\n\n";
exit 0;

As you can see, it does the work of encrypting the password and then displays exactly the information you'll need to add to the new .htpasswd file. A file duplicating the two accounts shown above would look like this:

taylor:z6K5hUINhVrIA
guest:SXUISuZuiD0Os

With the passwords encrypted, it's a lot harder for hackers to reverse-engineer and sneak in if they manage to snag a copy of this information!

The only other step is to change the httpd.conf file so that the server knows to look for the password file in the directory. This is done by adding the boldface lines below to the file:

<VirtualHost www.intuitive.com>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /web
ServerName www.intuitive.com
<Location /CGI/password/private>
AuthName /web/CGI/password/private
AuthType basic
AuthUserFile /web/CGI/password/private/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
Allow From All
</Location>
</VirtualHost>

Now we're rocking! Any access to any of the information in the specified folder (AuthName) requires the user to log in to the server correctly, with the dialog box (as shown in Figure 1) popped up and the account/password information compared against the contents of the AuthUserFile as shown above.

... ... ...

DNS Tools: dns_tree is a command-line-based front-end to dig

It replaces the several dig invocations necessary to fetch a zone, and it formats the output in a somewhat sensible hierarchical style (a tree). dns_browse is a GUI front-end to dns_tree. It allows point-and-click DNS browsing and makes it easy to expand/compress hierarchies in one or more DNS zones.

dns_tree requires dig and Perl 5.002 or later. dns_browse requires Tk-4.2 or later.

cron.pl

A simple emulation for the Unix cron utility. Written by Scott McMahan.

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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