Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: wishlist: current line number variable
Message-ID: <8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 24 Jul 90 18:56:45 GMT
References: <1131@etnibsd.UUCP> <8812@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <15690@bfmny0.BFM.COM> <8815@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <aq9sk3.kc9@wang.com>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 43

In article <aq9sk3.kc9@wang.com> fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald) writes:
: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
: > However, after the next patch you'll be able to
: > run this article through perl -x and it will print out "howdy".
: 
: > #!/usr/bin/perl
: > $_ = <STDIN>;
: > print;
: > __END__
: > howdy
: 
: > Think a little about the possible implications of that.
: 
: Great!  This'll save ten lines out of my BASIC to PERL translator!

Heh.  Well.  That's an idea, at that.

Actually, I wasn't aiming quite so high.  I was just thinking about
obsoleting sharchives.

You could unpack easily on any machine that had Perl and could feed the
article to STDIN.  The unpacker would be up at the front for easy
verification of security concerns--no embedded code way down in the
archive would be necessary.  Very easy access to transmogrification for
BITNET proofing.  You could easily automate the security checking of known
secure unpackers since the script is all at the front.  Since most of
what you need is built in, you can do a chroot for additional security
without carrying along most of /bin with you.

The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl.

Horrors.  :-)

Actually, since the rest of the archive would be in a standard form,
you could probably write your own program to unpack easily it if you
didn't have Perl.  But if you did have Perl, it would be more or less
self-unpacking.  And Perl is available on more architectures that sh.
I think sharchives are gonna get obsolete real quick.

'course, I gotta get this next patch out sometime...

Larry Wall
lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov