$@ alternative

Gangabass has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Customer ask me to write DBI script which will change server if current server did't response. I write this simple code:

my $timeout = 10; #10 seconds timeout
foreach my $source (@sources) {
my dbh = connect_to_db($source);
my sth = $dbh->prepare(YOU_QUERY_GOES_HERE);
eval {
    local $SIG{ALRM} = sub {die "alarmn";};
    alarm($timeout);
    $sth->execute(YOUR_PARAMS);
    alarm(0);
};
unless ($@) {
    last;
#ALL OK
} else {
#didnt
    print "Timeout happens!n";
}
}
[download]

But customer said that he already use $@ in your script (and he can use it only once) so i need to rewrite my sample without using $@. How i can do this? May be there is some way to declare local copy of $@ and after my block to restore original value?

Comment on $@ alternative Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: $@ alternative by kyle (Abbot) on Sep 10, 2007 at 12:14 UTC
This might work: `my $timeout = 10; # 10 seconds timeout SOURCE: foreach my $source (@sources) { my dbh = connect_to_db($source); my sth = $dbh->prepare( $your_query ); my $eval_result = eval { local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "alarm\n" }; alarm( $timeout ); $sth->execute( $your_params ); alarm( 0 ); 1; }; if ( $eval_result ) { last SOURCE; # ALL OK } else { print "Timeout happens!\n"; } }` [download] It might be useful to see also How to timeout if a call to an external program takes too long and Re: Question on "Effective Perl Programming" (;1 > $@). Note that the above will actually change `$@` when it's run, even though it doesn't use it otherwise. If you really want code that doesn't touch `$@`, using local is the way to go.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: $@ alternative by ikegami (Patriarch) on Sep 10, 2007 at 12:44 UTC
`$@` will still be changed. ( Oops, the parent already said that. )	[reply] [d/l]
Re: $@ alternative by runrig (Abbot) on Sep 10, 2007 at 05:33 UTC
Why is he using $@? If he's not using it for an eval error, can't he use something else?	[reply]
Re^2: $@ alternative by Gangabass (Vicar) on Sep 10, 2007 at 06:35 UTC
I don't know :-(. And he did't answer. Can i add `{ local $@; ...my code goes here... }` [download] to preserve $@?	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: $@ alternative by sgt (Deacon) on Sep 10, 2007 at 08:30 UTC
$@ is global, so yes you can localize it, (and in general you should make a local copy if you want to preserve a previous exception). $@ being global, at the first exception triggered the previous contents of $@ will be destoyed, so that means probably your customer never used exception-eval blocks, or was just lucky, as the following code demonstrates. `% steph@ape (/home/stephan/r) % % perl -we '$@ = "customer stuff..."; eval { die "dont muck with $@!" +}; print $@' dont muck with ! at -e line 1. % steph@ape (/home/stephan/r) % % perl -we '$@ = "customer stuff..."; { local $@; eval { die "dont muc +k with $@!" }; } print $@' customer stuff...` [download] cheers --stephan	[reply] [d/l]
Re: $@ alternative by samtregar (Abbot) on Sep 10, 2007 at 21:46 UTC
Not what you asked about, but I thought I should point out that your code may cause hard to trace memory corruption. Your DBD driver is likely XS code linking to a compiled client library, most are. Interupting code like that with a signal and then trying to call back into that code will work most of the time, until it doesn't. When it doesn't you'll get very bizarre results - crashes in unrelated areas of code for example. The reason is that your DBD driver may be keeping global state which is left in an inconsistent state by your alarm interupt. I wrote DBIx::Timeout to deal with this problem. It only works for MySQL at the moment but I believe the concept should be portable. -sam	[reply]
Re^2: $@ alternative by Gangabass (Vicar) on Sep 11, 2007 at 06:06 UTC
Thanks! I'll take a look to it.	[reply]
Re: $@ alternative by rdfield (Priest) on Sep 10, 2007 at 11:47 UTC
You could use your own global variable which is set to a non-zero value when the alarm is triggered. rdfield	[reply]


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