On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Thomas Pfau wrote:
> So, I started working on creating a new company web site.
> VMS::IndexedFile provides direct access to the RMS data but the data in
> the records needed to be broken out into fields. I started putting
> together a couple of modules to handle this.
>
> I called the first module Formatter. This class is presented with a
> list of field names and pack/unpack descriptors. It provides
> subroutines to convert a record read from a file into a hash or convert
> a hash back into a record that can be written to a file.
<snip>
> The second module is called FlatFile. This class can be used either by
> itself or can be used as a base which is what I did. It uses
> VMS::IndexedFile for file access and Formatter to convert data records
> into Perl usable formats.
> When used as a base class, the derived class would represent a
> particular file on the system and would provide the file name and format
> arguments. Programs using the derived class would specify the level of
> access and key required.
>
> With these modules, I was able to rewrite all eight inquiry programs in
> two weeks. I'll be looking into some data entry routines next.
>
> Anyway, my reason for posting was to see if there was any interest in
> these routines. I'd also be open to suggestions for module and routine
> names. These were the best I could come up with on the spur of the
> moment but I haven't been particularly fond of them.
>
> I'll be cleaning them up and attempting to write some documentation for
> them. Once I'm done, I'll make them available from my web space on my
> ISP.
They sound great and I would like to take a look. Formatter and FlatFile
sound a bit generic though. Perhaps they ought to go into the VMS::*
package namespace? Or do we need an RMS::* namespace?
You ought to consider distributing them via CPAN - go to a CPAN site
and hunt down the PAUSE documentation. I found that with web uploads
it was ridiculously easy to pop modules onto CPAN just recently (I
had even forgotten my password for a long time).
Peter Prymmer
