mikerochford.com Being technical

Connecting to a machine using sockets

I work with a api system that connects on a high port. My co-work Matt came up with a great way to set the socket up and verify if the socket isn't stale. This sub-routine is specific to the api but you can use the theory and apply it to pretty much your socket needs.

Once you have the understanding of how the sub-routine works. Building a script that interacts with the api is a piece of cake.

Here is an example of how we use the sub-routine in a script. This example will check to see if the socket is defined, if not it will try to connect and define the socket. Once the socket is defined it will issue a command and read the socket.

Popularity: 6% [?]

sub-routine: gettime();

Over the years working as a systems administrator I have a large sub-routine collection on my belt. One that I use quite frequently is gettime();. This is a simple routine someone in my group wrote to return a nicely formatted timestamp. It is use mostly for logging and such.

Example:

returns:

Popularity: 13% [?]

Hiding your STDIN

Ever write a script that you have to enter a elevated users password? or even your own? Check this out.

Using Term:ReadKey you can disable echo for STDOUT. This way no one will see your password from over your shoulder.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Howto access an array that is in a hash

Say you have a hash element that contains an array and you want to loop through the array set. You usually have these types of data sets when you are trying to gather data.

example:
We will use the following code to build the hash:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Data::Dumper;
my %data_set;
$data_set{'users'} = ();
$data_set{'users'}[0] = "testA";
$data_set{'users'}[1] = "testB";
$data_set{'users'}[2] = "testC";
$data_set{'users'}[3] = "testD";
$data_set{'users'}[4] = "testE";
$data_set{'users'}[5] = "testF";
print Dumper(%data_set);


Output:

$VAR1 = 'users';
$VAR2 = [
'testA',
'testB',
'testC',
'testD'
];


Now that we know the hash element is populated we want to access each array element. This can be done with making some crazy counter in a while loop. Check it out.

foreach my $user (@{$data_set{'users'}}){
print $user,"\n";
}


Now knowing you can access a array with in a hash using @{} you can push,pop,splice and shift on the array that is in a hash.

Here is the same script above but using push:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Data::Dumper;
my %data_set;
$data_set{'users'} = ();
push(@{$data_set{'users'}},"testA");
push(@{$data_set{'users'}},"testB");
push(@{$data_set{'users'}},"testC");
push(@{$data_set{'users'}},"testD");

foreach my $user (@{$data_set{'users'}}){
print $user,"\n";
}

Popularity: 2% [?]

Howto push a hash onto an array

This information was giving to me by my friend Matt
use Data::Dumper;
my @array;
push @array, {'key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2'};
push @array, {'key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2'};
push @array, {'key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2'};
print Dumper(@array);

Will give you:

$VAR1 = {
'key2' => 'value2',
'key1' => 'value1'
};
$VAR2 = {
'key2' => 'value2',
'key1' => 'value1'
};
$VAR3 = {
'key2' => 'value2',
'key1' => 'value1'
};

Popularity: 2% [?]