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New Perl Programmer

Hello there. I need help debugging a perl program for printing out recipes. Keep in mind, I am extremely new to perl programming. I have probably made some blindingly obvious mistake. Thank you.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

#

# This is the code for my recipe selector, version 0.1 BETA

# Written in Perl

# Current recipe(s): Apricot Chicken Pot Stickers, Baked Pasta Casserole

use strict;

use warnings;





# Locate the files

my $acptloc = <recipe/acpt.txt>;

my $bpcloc = <recipe/bpc.txt>;

# Open the recipe files

# - Pasta

open(acptfile, "recipe/acpt.txt") or die("Program unable to open acpt.txt!");

open(bpcfile, "recipe/bpc.txt") or die("Program unable to open bpc.txt!");



# Put the files into variables

# - Pasta

my @acptprint = <acptfile>;

my @bpcprint = <bpcfile>;



# The recipe categories

my @recipecat = ("pasta", "bbq", "bread");



# Print the welcome screen and recipe catagories

print "Welcome to my recipe tracking system!\n\n";

print "This is version 0.1 BETA. Please select a category:\n\n @recipecat\n\n";



# Select the recipe categorie

my $recipecatselect = <STDIN>;



# If the use selects the pasta categories, do this

if ($recipecatselect == "pasta") {



# Prints out the pasta welcome screen

 print "\n\nHello. You selected pasta. Please select a pasta from the list.\n";

 print "Use the abbrievations, thank you.\n\n";

 

# List of pasta recipes

# ACPT - Apricot Chicekn Pot Stickers

# BPC - Baked Pasta Casserole

# In an array:

my @pastalist = ("acpt", "bpc");





 # Print the pasta list

 print "acpt - apricot chicken pot stickers\n bpc - baked pasta casserole\n\n";

 

 # Select the pasta

my $pastasel = <STDIN>; 



# If the user selects ACPT, do this

        if ($pastasel == "acpt") {

        

            

            # Print the recipe

            print "\n\n";

            print @acptprint;

            print "\n";

            

            # Close the recipe

            close ("acptfile");

            



        }

        



# If the user selects BPC, do this

        elsif ($pastasel == "bpc") {

            

            # Print the recipe

            print "\n\n";

            print @bpcprint;

            print "\n";

            

            # Close the file

            close ("bpcfile");

            

        }

        

        else {

            print "That feature is not currently implemented. Sorry";

        }

        

        }



else {

    print "That feature is not currently implemented. Sorry.";

}



print "Press ENTER to exit.";

my $exit = <STDIN>;

I know the code is probably horribly lumped together, but this is practice. And no, this is not a school project, I am doing it on my own. ;-)

Try to change every string comparaison == with the perl string comparaison operator: eq
so replace if($pastasel == "acpt") with if($pastasel eq "acpt") etc

These 2 vars are unused:

my $acptloc = <recipe/acpt.txt>;
my $bpcloc = <recipe/bpc.txt>;

you should get a warning from Perl about that. Personally, I'd find your var names easier to read if you insert underscores between words eg $recipe_cat_select instead of $recipecatselect, but that's just me ;)

You can ask Perl to check your code without executing the prog like this:

perl -wc myprog.pl

Actually, I think instead of

my $acptloc = <recipe/acpt.txt>;

you mean

my $acptloc = "recipe/acpt.txt";

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01 (Post 3272923)

DUH! $acptloc was supposed in placed of putting <recipe/acpt.txt> in the open line.

Quote:

Originally Posted by keefaz (Post 3272665)

Try to change every string comparaison == with the perl string comparaison operator: eq
so replace if($pastasel == "acpt") with if($pastasel eq "acpt") etc

Alright, thanks.

Nope, still not working.

try add: chomp $recipecatselect;
just under the my $recipecatselect = <STDIN>; line
(because $recipecatselect contains a \n character at the end, so could never be strictly equal to "pasta" for example, chomp will remove the \n)

... and don't just say 'its not working', tell us what error you get etc.