So I was commenting some code I wrote for a friend who's new to perl and
I came across the following in my code:

# replace decimals with 999999999 in order to check for non-numerical
# data, then switch it back (this is a lazyman's shortcut)

$in{hours} =~ s/\./999999999/;
if ($in{hours} =~ /\D/) {
push @missing,'Hours contains non-numerical data';
$missing = 1;
}
$in{hours}=~s/999999999/\./;

And I realized I've been too lazy with this for too long. So my first
thought was to post here with "how do I test for non-numerical in decimal
number data?" but, of course, that violates the "How to ask intelligent
questions in CPLM", so I googled it.

Came up with a bunch of non-relevant results until I saw a similar
question and the answer was "Your answer is in perldoc perldata"

So I did exactly that. Of course, the answer *is* right there:

warn "not a decimal number" unless /^-?\d+\.?\d*$/;

This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq5.pod, which
comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to
reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community
to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete
perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org .

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5.11: How can I write() into a string?

See "Accessing Formatting Internals" in perlform for an "swrite()"
function.

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so please include as much information as possible and relevant in any
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Working code is greatly appreciated.

If you'd like to help maintain the perlfaq, see the details in
perlfaq.pod.

For about the past 10 years, i have been concerned in the programing
community's level of education in social issues.

I have found that recently, a news that would be of interest to
programers.

There was a bet at longbets.org (run by Long Now Foundation) regarding
the importance of blogs. The bet was made in 2002. The prediction has
a resolution date in 2007.

In 2008, the bet is resolved. See

“Decision: Blogs vs. New York Times” (2008-02-01) by Alexander Rose
http://blog.longnow.org/2008/02/01/decision-blogs-vs-new-york-times/

I'd like encourage, for many of you, who have lots of opinions on
technical issues or social issues surrounding software, to make use of
longbets.org. It can help shape your thoughts from blog fart to
something more refined. In any case, your money will benefit society.

here's some examples you could try:

• I bet that Java will be out of the top 10 programing languages by
2020.

This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq4.pod, which
comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to
reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community
to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete
perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org .

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4.60: How can I always keep my hash sorted?

You can look into using the "DB_File" module and "tie()" using the
$DB_BTREE hash bindings as documented in "In Memory Databases" in
DB_File. The "Tie::IxHash" module from CPAN might also be instructive.
Although this does keep your hash sorted, you might not like the slow
down you suffer from the tie interface. Are you sure you need to do
this? :)

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Maybe I'm wrong, but if I were to use LWP::Parallel to parse a remote
site for a few hours, then couldn't this be possibly interpreted as a
Denial of Service? And if could be interpreted as a possibly Denial of
Service attack, what could I do to possibly avoid it?

This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq7.pod, which
comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to
reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community
to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete
perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org .

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7.4: How do I skip some return values?

One way is to treat the return values as a list and index into it:

$dir = (getpwnam($user))[7];

Another way is to use undef as an element on the left-hand-side:

($dev, $ino, undef, undef, $uid, $gid) = stat($file);

You can also use a list slice to select only the elements that you need:

($dev, $ino, $uid, $gid) = ( stat($file) )[0,1,4,5];

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This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq4.pod, which
comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to
reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community
to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete
perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org .

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

4.62: Why don't my tied hashes make the defined/exists distinction?

This depends on the tied hash's implementation of EXISTS(). For example,
there isn't the concept of undef with hashes that are tied to DBM*
files. It also means that exists() and defined() do the same thing with
a DBM* file, and what they end up doing is not what they do with
ordinary hashes.

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