| Subject: | CGI::Pretty Mishandles local $"=''; |
Perl: 5.8.4
CGI.pm: 3.04
CGI:Pretty: 1.08
OS: Mac OS X 10.3.8
Browsers tried: Safari; Mozilla
I am experiencing problems with CGI::Pretty's handling of Perl's special variable $". According to the module's documentation (echoed in chapter 5 of CGI Programming with Perl, 2nd ed.) substituting CGI::Pretty for CGI should have no effect on output; it should merely make the HTML source more readable.
But I have found a case where using CGI::Pretty actually deletes characters intended to be output. That case centers around localized use of $" for the purpose of eliminating whitespace between elements of a list. Consider the following two scripts:
##### mycgi.cgi
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -wT
use strict;
use CGI;
my $q = new CGI;
print $q->header( -type => "text/html" );
print $q->start_html(-title => "The Time");
print $q->p( "The server name is:", $q->server_name );
{
local $" = '';
print $q->p( "Server=", $q->server_name );
}
print $q->end_html;
##### mycgipretty.cgi
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -wT
use strict;
use CGI::Pretty qw(:html3);
my $q = new CGI::Pretty;
print $q->header( -type => "text/html" );
print $q->start_html(-title => "The Time");
print $q->p( "The server name is:", $q->server_name );
{
local $" = '';
print $q->p( "Server=", $q->server_name );
}
print $q->end_html;
1. When I run the first script from the command line, I get:
The server name is: localhost
in the first case and
Server=localhost
in the second. This DWIMs.
2. But when I run the second script from the command line, I get the same result in the first case, but in the second I get:
Server=localhos
The final 't' is chopped off!
When I run these two scripts through the browsers on my Mac, I get:
The server name is: macintosh.local
Server=macintosh.local
as expected in the first case, but this in the second:
The server name is: macintosh.local
Server=macintosh.loca
In this case, it's the final 'l' that is chopped off.
I have discussed this case with the module's author and have submitted
a patch represented by the following diff. The patch passes some tests
that I have written, but I don't pretend to have thoroughly tested it.
13c13
< $CGI::Pretty::VERSION = '1.08';
---
Show quoted text
> $CGI::Pretty::VERSION = '1.0803';
108c108
< chop \$args[0];
---
Show quoted text> chop \$args[0] unless \$" eq "";
130,131c130,134
< local \$" = "" if \$CGI::Pretty::LINEBREAK || \$CGI::Pretty::INDENT;
< return "\@result";
---
Show quoted text> if (\$CGI::Pretty::LINEBREAK || \$CGI::Pretty::INDENT) {
> return join ("", \@result);
> } else {
> return "\@result";
> }
Jim Keenan