[prog] perl woes...
Patricia Fraser
trish at thefrasers.org
Sat May 31 16:19:15 EST 2003
Hi folks,
I'm wading through my project from the middle outwards, and trying to
learn Perl as I go, so hopefully these questions aren't too muddy. I'm
working on a CGI app that uses a MySQL database, Perl CGI scripts,
Apache; the idea is for users to make selections from drop-down lists
where there's data in tables, and then fill in form fields, and for the
results of the lot to get written back to the database.
I have some of it working, with help from various sources, but I've
struck a couple of snags - and if I'm not being explanatory enough,
please shout!
First, I don't understand what's happening in a statement like
$tmpl->param( supplist => \@suppliers );
I know what the result is - the actual value held in the hash to which
the array refers gets pasted into a drop-down list in the template file
I have set up. It works *fine*, and the drop-down list has all the
right stuff in it. What I don't understand is *how*, so I can apply a
principle elsewhere.
(code samples on request - too long to post in this mail!)
I guess there are a couple of things I don't understand; first, what
"=>" does as opposed to what "->" does, but more to the point, what's
actually happening when I'm tracking back through references (which
I've figured out are actually memory addresses) to get back the stored
value, which is what I want.
I'm also hoping for help with pointers to working out what
templating system (if any) might be most helpful. I've read pretty much
everything I can find, but some light-bulb moments would be lovely!
I chose HTML::Template because of the looping thing, for populating
drop-down lists, but it seems to have a drawback - I'd like the choices
the user makes in the first two lists to be able to be plugged into the
select statement for the third list, so the third list will only have
data according to the first two choices.
Seems like, once having decided to template at all, I have to move to a
new page to display the third list, because I can't get the template to
update the third list after the choices are made - ! I can update a
page if I use a here-document, but that doesn't seem to allow me to
populate the lists from the database. Grr!
I've got a thing working, with the extra-page way, but it seems a bit
inelegant, and I'd really like to find out a solution to the problem
anyway, because I'll need it again later...
There are more questions, but this is more than enough for now!
Cheers,
--
Trish Fraser, Sunbury, Australia
Linux user #283226 counter.li.org
cassiopeia up 25 days and counting
kernel 2.4.18-6mdk
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