Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!csn!boulder!spot.Colorado.EDU!frechett
From: frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU (-=Runaway Daemon=-)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Wanting to convert awk to perl
Summary: Would perl be faster than awk...
Keywords: awk, perl, csh
Message-ID: <1991May19.064619.2493@colorado.edu>
Date: 19 May 91 06:46:19 GMT
References: <1991May19.034308.9149@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> <1991May19.060736.26323@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@colorado.edu (The Daily Planet)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 56
Nntp-Posting-Host: spot.colorado.edu

Some time ago I wrote a handy little script in csh that used an awk script 
as well to replace the "biff" that we have on our machines.. The built in 
biff is horrible as it blurts out about 4 lines and totally messes up 
my screen.. At 2400 baud, I simply don't want to waste the time redrawing
the screen if I don't have to.. 

So I wrote a script that is in my .forward.  It grabs username from the 
From: line of incoming mail then prints out 
MAIL from username    wherever the cursor currently is, and then the cursor
promptly returns to the M in MAIL.  This of course means that it doesn't 
mess up my screen at all.  Just recently I mangaged to get the csh script 
and the awk scripts all into one csh script.  I like it in general, but 
I feel that it could be done faster in perl.  I can get the various 
awk routines into perl easily enough but I get stuck trying to emulate 
other stuff.. I will include my script here and put current comments in 
double ##.

#!/bin/csh
# informe      Written by Ian Frechette  frechett@spot.coloraod.edu
 
# set username to the name of the person who this is to output to...
set username = frechett
# find Username's ttys
set ttys = (`find /dev -user $username -print`)
## Figuring out how to do find in perl is puzzling me... and I can't even 
## get a system command into a varible that perl can recognize.

#  Extract address from incoming message. 
## first awk routine.. The problems that I had with awk here, was that there is
## no way to pass a variable out of awk.. Thus the set address = `` nonsense.
## I would like to remedy that.
set address = `awk '/^From:/ { test = 0 ;for(i = 1 ; i <= NF ; ++ i) { if ($i ~ /@/)  {   if ($i ~ /^</ ) printf ("%s\n", substr($i,2,length($i)-2)); else printf ("%s\n",$i);  test = 1 ; exit } } if (test == 0 ) printf ("%s\n", $2); }'`

# Echo $address to $username's ttys and then back up to beginning of message
## Typically, I put in a couple vt100 escape codes to make "MAIL from" 
## display in bold, but I took them out to post.. 

## This is the second awk routine.. the problem here is that I need to 
## get perl to output to however many ttys that it found up above.. twice.
echo -n "MAIL from $address" | tee $ttys | \
awk '{{for (i = 1 ; i <= NF ; ++i) {for (j = 1 ; j <= length($i)-2; ++j)\
{printf ""} } } ; for (k = 1 ; k <= NF -1 ; ++ k) {printf ""}}' | \
tee $ttys > /dev/null

# Make sure no errors are returned or mail will bounce.
exit(0)


I would like to know if any perl wizards out there would be interested in 
giving me some hints on what to do or demonstrating what needs to be 
changed... Any help at all would be appreciated, and comments regarding the 
script itself I might find interesting..   Thanks..

	ian

-=Runaway Daemon=-    (UNIXOps University of Colorado at Boulder)