X-Git-Url: http://git.shadowcat.co.uk/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?a=blobdiff_plain;f=pod%2Fperlfaq9.pod;h=ce0cf072419da3f6825e798bfbb9c5a9a7bfb935;hb=5b7d14ffe3988c7f70fd9dc76be9c44168d17a62;hp=3bf862f3ebda1c028deb1d6e53baa891e43834ef;hpb=24f1ba9b2223fc835b4bd6620a0213351e693b23;p=p5sagit%2Fp5-mst-13.2.git

diff --git a/pod/perlfaq9.pod b/pod/perlfaq9.pod
index 3bf862f..ce0cf07 100644
--- a/pod/perlfaq9.pod
+++ b/pod/perlfaq9.pod
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 =head1 NAME
 
-perlfaq9 - Networking ($Revision: 1.2 $, $Date: 2001/09/28 06:40:07 $)
+perlfaq9 - Networking
 
 =head1 DESCRIPTION
 
@@ -11,20 +11,19 @@ and a few on the web.
 
 (Alan Flavell <flavell+www@a5.ph.gla.ac.uk> answers...)
 
-The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) specifies a software interface between 
-a program ("CGI script") and a web server (HTTPD). It is not specific 
-to Perl, and has its own FAQs and tutorials, and usenet group, 
-comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi 
+The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) specifies a software interface between
+a program ("CGI script") and a web server (HTTPD). It is not specific
+to Perl, and has its own FAQs and tutorials, and usenet group,
+comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi
 
-The original CGI specification is at: http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/ 
-
-Current best-practice RFC draft at: http://CGI-Spec.Golux.Com/ 
+The CGI specification is outlined in an informational RFC:
+http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3875
 
 Other relevant documentation listed in: http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
 
-These Perl FAQs very selectively cover some CGI issues. However, Perl 
+These Perl FAQs very selectively cover some CGI issues. However, Perl
 programmers are strongly advised to use the CGI.pm module, to take care
-of the details for them. 
+of the details for them.
 
 The similarity between CGI response headers (defined in the CGI
 specification) and HTTP response headers (defined in the HTTP
@@ -48,7 +47,12 @@ systems. CGI.pm selects an appropriate newline representation
 
 =head2 My CGI script runs from the command line but not the browser.  (500 Server Error)
 
-If you can demonstrate that you've read the FAQs and that 
+Several things could be wrong.  You can go through the "Troubleshooting
+Perl CGI scripts" guide at
+
+	http://www.perl.org/troubleshooting_CGI.html
+
+If, after that, you can demonstrate that you've read the FAQs and that
 your problem isn't something simple that can be easily answered, you'll
 probably receive a courteous and useful reply to your question if you
 post it on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi (if it's something to do
@@ -56,12 +60,11 @@ with HTTP or the CGI protocols).  Questions that appear to be Perl
 questions but are really CGI ones that are posted to comp.lang.perl.misc
 are not so well received.
 
-The useful FAQs, related documents, and troubleshooting guides are 
+The useful FAQs, related documents, and troubleshooting guides are
 listed in the CGI Meta FAQ:
 
 	http://www.perl.org/CGI_MetaFAQ.html
 
-
 =head2 How can I get better error messages from a CGI program?
 
 Use the CGI::Carp module.  It replaces C<warn> and C<die>, plus the
@@ -69,25 +72,25 @@ normal Carp modules C<carp>, C<croak>, and C<confess> functions with
 more verbose and safer versions.  It still sends them to the normal
 server error log.
 
-    use CGI::Carp;
-    warn "This is a complaint";
-    die "But this one is serious";
+	use CGI::Carp;
+	warn "This is a complaint";
+	die "But this one is serious";
 
 The following use of CGI::Carp also redirects errors to a file of your choice,
 placed in a BEGIN block to catch compile-time warnings as well:
 
-    BEGIN {
-        use CGI::Carp qw(carpout);
-        open(LOG, ">>/var/local/cgi-logs/mycgi-log")
-            or die "Unable to append to mycgi-log: $!\n";
-        carpout(*LOG);
-    }
+	BEGIN {
+		use CGI::Carp qw(carpout);
+		open(LOG, ">>/var/local/cgi-logs/mycgi-log")
+			or die "Unable to append to mycgi-log: $!\n";
+		carpout(*LOG);
+	}
 
 You can even arrange for fatal errors to go back to the client browser,
 which is nice for your own debugging, but might confuse the end user.
 
-    use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
-    die "Bad error here";
+	use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
+	die "Bad error here";
 
 Even if the error happens before you get the HTTP header out, the module
 will try to take care of this to avoid the dreaded server 500 errors.
@@ -110,147 +113,190 @@ entities--like C<&lt;> for example.
 
 Here's one "simple-minded" approach, that works for most files:
 
-    #!/usr/bin/perl -p0777
-    s/<(?:[^>'"]*|(['"]).*?\1)*>//gs
+	#!/usr/bin/perl -p0777
+	s/<(?:[^>'"]*|(['"]).*?\1)*>//gs
 
 If you want a more complete solution, see the 3-stage striphtml
 program in
-http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/striphtml.gz
+http://www.cpan.org/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/striphtml.gz
 .
 
 Here are some tricky cases that you should think about when picking
 a solution:
 
-    <IMG SRC = "foo.gif" ALT = "A > B">
+	<IMG SRC = "foo.gif" ALT = "A > B">
 
-    <IMG SRC = "foo.gif"
+	<IMG SRC = "foo.gif"
 	 ALT = "A > B">
 
-    <!-- <A comment> -->
+	<!-- <A comment> -->
 
-    <script>if (a<b && a>c)</script>
+	<script>if (a<b && a>c)</script>
 
-    <# Just data #>
+	<# Just data #>
 
-    <![INCLUDE CDATA [ >>>>>>>>>>>> ]]>
+	<![INCLUDE CDATA [ >>>>>>>>>>>> ]]>
 
 If HTML comments include other tags, those solutions would also break
 on text like this:
 
-    <!-- This section commented out.
-        <B>You can't see me!</B>
-    -->
+	<!-- This section commented out.
+		<B>You can't see me!</B>
+	-->
 
 =head2 How do I extract URLs?
 
-A quick but imperfect approach is
+You can easily extract all sorts of URLs from HTML with
+C<HTML::SimpleLinkExtor> which handles anchors, images, objects,
+frames, and many other tags that can contain a URL.  If you need
+anything more complex, you can create your own subclass of
+C<HTML::LinkExtor> or C<HTML::Parser>.  You might even use
+C<HTML::SimpleLinkExtor> as an example for something specifically
+suited to your needs.
+
+You can use URI::Find to extract URLs from an arbitrary text document.
+
+Less complete solutions involving regular expressions can save
+you a lot of processing time if you know that the input is simple.  One
+solution from Tom Christiansen runs 100 times faster than most
+module based approaches but only extracts URLs from anchors where the first
+attribute is HREF and there are no other attributes.
+
+	#!/usr/bin/perl -n00
+	# qxurl - tchrist@perl.com
+	print "$2\n" while m{
+		< \s*
+		  A \s+ HREF \s* = \s* (["']) (.*?) \1
+		\s* >
+	}gsix;
 
-    #!/usr/bin/perl -n00
-    # qxurl - tchrist@perl.com
-    print "$2\n" while m{
-	< \s*
-	  A \s+ HREF \s* = \s* (["']) (.*?) \1
-	\s* >
-    }gsix;
+=head2 How do I download a file from the user's machine?  How do I open a file on another machine?
 
-This version does not adjust relative URLs, understand alternate
-bases, deal with HTML comments, deal with HREF and NAME attributes
-in the same tag, understand extra qualifiers like TARGET, or accept
-URLs themselves as arguments.  It also runs about 100x faster than a
-more "complete" solution using the LWP suite of modules, such as the
-http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/xurl.gz program.
+In this case, download means to use the file upload feature of HTML
+forms.  You allow the web surfer to specify a file to send to your web
+server.  To you it looks like a download, and to the user it looks
+like an upload.  No matter what you call it, you do it with what's
+known as B<multipart/form-data> encoding.  The CGI.pm module (which
+comes with Perl as part of the Standard Library) supports this in the
+start_multipart_form() method, which isn't the same as the startform()
+method.
 
-=head2 How do I download a file from the user's machine?  How do I open a file on another machine?
+See the section in the CGI.pm documentation on file uploads for code
+examples and details.
 
-In the context of an HTML form, you can use what's known as
-B<multipart/form-data> encoding.  The CGI.pm module (available from
-CPAN) supports this in the start_multipart_form() method, which isn't
-the same as the startform() method.
+=head2 How do I make an HTML pop-up menu with Perl?
 
-=head2 How do I make a pop-up menu in HTML?
+(contributed by brian d foy)
 
-Use the B<< <SELECT> >> and B<< <OPTION> >> tags.  The CGI.pm
-module (available from CPAN) supports this widget, as well as many
-others, including some that it cleverly synthesizes on its own.
+The CGI.pm module (which comes with Perl) has functions to create
+the HTML form widgets. See the CGI.pm documentation for more
+examples.
+
+	use CGI qw/:standard/;
+	print header,
+		start_html('Favorite Animals'),
+
+		start_form,
+			"What's your favorite animal? ",
+		popup_menu(
+			-name   => 'animal',
+			-values => [ qw( Llama Alpaca Camel Ram ) ]
+			),
+		submit,
+
+		end_form,
+		end_html;
 
 =head2 How do I fetch an HTML file?
 
-One approach, if you have the lynx text-based HTML browser installed
-on your system, is this:
+(contributed by brian d foy)
 
-    $html_code = `lynx -source $url`;
-    $text_data = `lynx -dump $url`;
+Use the libwww-perl distribution. The C<LWP::Simple> module can fetch web
+resources and give their content back to you as a string:
 
-The libwww-perl (LWP) modules from CPAN provide a more powerful way
-to do this.  They don't require lynx, but like lynx, can still work
-through proxies:
+	use LWP::Simple qw(get);
 
-    # simplest version
-    use LWP::Simple;
-    $content = get($URL);
+	my $html = get( "http://www.example.com/index.html" );
 
-    # or print HTML from a URL
-    use LWP::Simple;
-    getprint "http://www.linpro.no/lwp/";
+It can also store the resource directly in a file:
 
-    # or print ASCII from HTML from a URL
-    # also need HTML-Tree package from CPAN
-    use LWP::Simple;
-    use HTML::Parser;
-    use HTML::FormatText;
-    my ($html, $ascii);
-    $html = get("http://www.perl.com/");
-    defined $html
-        or die "Can't fetch HTML from http://www.perl.com/";
-    $ascii = HTML::FormatText->new->format(parse_html($html));
-    print $ascii;
+	use LWP::Simple qw(getstore);
+
+	getstore( "http://www.example.com/index.html", "foo.html" );
+
+If you need to do something more complicated, you can use
+C<LWP::UserAgent> module to create your own user-agent (e.g. browser)
+to get the job done. If you want to simulate an interactive web
+browser, you can use the C<WWW::Mechanize> module.
 
 =head2 How do I automate an HTML form submission?
 
+If you are doing something complex, such as moving through many pages
+and forms or a web site, you can use C<WWW::Mechanize>.  See its
+documentation for all the details.
+
 If you're submitting values using the GET method, create a URL and encode
 the form using the C<query_form> method:
 
-    use LWP::Simple;
-    use URI::URL;
+	use LWP::Simple;
+	use URI::URL;
 
-    my $url = url('http://www.perl.com/cgi-bin/cpan_mod');
-    $url->query_form(module => 'DB_File', readme => 1);
-    $content = get($url);
+	my $url = url('http://www.perl.com/cgi-bin/cpan_mod');
+	$url->query_form(module => 'DB_File', readme => 1);
+	$content = get($url);
 
 If you're using the POST method, create your own user agent and encode
 the content appropriately.
 
-    use HTTP::Request::Common qw(POST);
-    use LWP::UserAgent;
+	use HTTP::Request::Common qw(POST);
+	use LWP::UserAgent;
 
-    $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
-    my $req = POST 'http://www.perl.com/cgi-bin/cpan_mod',
-                   [ module => 'DB_File', readme => 1 ];
-    $content = $ua->request($req)->as_string;
+	$ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
+	my $req = POST 'http://www.perl.com/cgi-bin/cpan_mod',
+				   [ module => 'DB_File', readme => 1 ];
+	$content = $ua->request($req)->as_string;
 
 =head2 How do I decode or create those %-encodings on the web?
+X<URI> X<CGI.pm> X<CGI> X<URI::Escape> X<RFC 2396>
 
+(contributed by brian d foy)
 
-If you are writing a CGI script, you should be using the CGI.pm module
-that comes with perl, or some other equivalent module.  The CGI module
-automatically decodes queries for you, and provides an escape()
-function to handle encoding.
+Those C<%> encodings handle reserved characters in URIs, as described
+in RFC 2396, Section 2. This encoding replaces the reserved character
+with the hexadecimal representation of the character's number from
+the US-ASCII table. For instance, a colon, C<:>, becomes C<%3A>.
 
+In CGI scripts, you don't have to worry about decoding URIs if you are
+using C<CGI.pm>. You shouldn't have to process the URI yourself,
+either on the way in or the way out.
 
-The best source of detailed information on URI encoding is RFC 2396.
-Basically, the following substitutions do it:
+If you have to encode a string yourself, remember that you should
+never try to encode an already-composed URI. You need to escape the
+components separately then put them together. To encode a string, you
+can use the the C<URI::Escape> module. The C<uri_escape> function
+returns the escaped string:
 
-    s/([^\w()'*~!.-])/sprintf '%%%02x', $1/eg;   # encode
+	my $original = "Colon : Hash # Percent %";
 
-    s/%([A-Fa-f\d]{2})/chr hex $1/eg;            # decode
+	my $escaped = uri_escape( $original )
 
-However, you should only apply them to individual URI components, not
-the entire URI, otherwise you'll lose information and generally mess
-things up.  If that didn't explain it, don't worry.  Just go read
-section 2 of the RFC, it's probably the best explanation there is.
+	print "$string\n"; # 'Colon%20%3A%20Hash%20%23%20Percent%20%25%20'
 
-RFC 2396 also contains a lot of other useful information, including a
-regexp for breaking any arbitrary URI into components (Appendix B).
+To decode the string, use the C<uri_unescape> function:
+
+	my $unescaped = uri_unescape( $escaped );
+
+	print $unescaped; # back to original
+
+If you wanted to do it yourself, you simply need to replace the
+reserved characters with their encodings. A global substitution
+is one way to do it:
+
+	# encode
+	$string =~ s/([^^A-Za-z0-9\-_.!~*'()])/ sprintf "%%%0x", ord $1 /eg;
+
+	#decode
+	$string =~ s/%([A-Fa-f\d]{2})/chr hex $1/eg;
 
 =head2 How do I redirect to another page?
 
@@ -264,31 +310,31 @@ allow relative URLs in either case.
 Use of CGI.pm is strongly recommended.  This example shows redirection
 with a complete URL. This redirection is handled by the web browser.
 
-      use CGI qw/:standard/;
-
-      my $url = 'http://www.perl.com/CPAN/';
-      print redirect($url);
+	use CGI qw/:standard/;
 
+	my $url = 'http://www.cpan.org/';
+	print redirect($url);
 
 This example shows a redirection with an absolute URLpath.  This
 redirection is handled by the local web server.
 
-      my $url = '/CPAN/index.html';
-      print redirect($url);
+	my $url = '/CPAN/index.html';
+	print redirect($url);
 
-
-But if coded directly, it could be as follows (the final "\n" is 
+But if coded directly, it could be as follows (the final "\n" is
 shown separately, for clarity), using either a complete URL or
-an absolute URLpath. 
-
-      print "Location: $url\n";   # CGI response header
-      print "\n";                 # end of headers
+an absolute URLpath.
 
+	print "Location: $url\n";   # CGI response header
+	print "\n";                 # end of headers
 
 =head2 How do I put a password on my web pages?
 
-That depends.  You'll need to read the documentation for your web
-server, or perhaps check some of the other FAQs referenced above.
+To enable authentication for your web server, you need to configure
+your web server.  The configuration is different for different sorts
+of web servers--apache does it differently from iPlanet which does
+it differently from IIS.  Check your web server documentation for
+the details for your particular server.
 
 =head2 How do I edit my .htpasswd and .htgroup files with Perl?
 
@@ -296,10 +342,10 @@ The HTTPD::UserAdmin and HTTPD::GroupAdmin modules provide a
 consistent OO interface to these files, regardless of how they're
 stored.  Databases may be text, dbm, Berkeley DB or any database with
 a DBI compatible driver.  HTTPD::UserAdmin supports files used by the
-`Basic' and `Digest' authentication schemes.  Here's an example:
+"Basic" and "Digest" authentication schemes.  Here's an example:
 
-    use HTTPD::UserAdmin ();
-    HTTPD::UserAdmin
+	use HTTPD::UserAdmin ();
+	HTTPD::UserAdmin
 	  ->new(DB => "/foo/.htpasswd")
 	  ->add($username => $password);
 
@@ -314,10 +360,10 @@ See the security references listed in the CGI Meta FAQ
 For a quick-and-dirty solution, try this solution derived
 from L<perlfunc/split>:
 
-    $/ = '';
-    $header = <MSG>;
-    $header =~ s/\n\s+/ /g;	 # merge continuation lines
-    %head = ( UNIX_FROM_LINE, split /^([-\w]+):\s*/m, $header );
+	$/ = '';
+	$header = <MSG>;
+	$header =~ s/\n\s+/ /g;	 # merge continuation lines
+	%head = ( UNIX_FROM_LINE, split /^([-\w]+):\s*/m, $header );
 
 That solution doesn't do well if, for example, you're trying to
 maintain all the Received lines.  A more complete approach is to use
@@ -325,80 +371,94 @@ the Mail::Header module from CPAN (part of the MailTools package).
 
 =head2 How do I decode a CGI form?
 
-You use a standard module, probably CGI.pm.  Under no circumstances
-should you attempt to do so by hand!
-
-You'll see a lot of CGI programs that blindly read from STDIN the number
-of bytes equal to CONTENT_LENGTH for POSTs, or grab QUERY_STRING for
-decoding GETs.  These programs are very poorly written.  They only work
-sometimes.  They typically forget to check the return value of the read()
-system call, which is a cardinal sin.  They don't handle HEAD requests.
-They don't handle multipart forms used for file uploads.  They don't deal
-with GET/POST combinations where query fields are in more than one place.
-They don't deal with keywords in the query string.
-
-In short, they're bad hacks.  Resist them at all costs.  Please do not be
-tempted to reinvent the wheel.  Instead, use the CGI.pm or CGI_Lite.pm
-(available from CPAN), or if you're trapped in the module-free land
-of perl1 .. perl4, you might look into cgi-lib.pl (available from
-http://cgi-lib.stanford.edu/cgi-lib/ ).
-
-Make sure you know whether to use a GET or a POST in your form.
-GETs should only be used for something that doesn't update the server.
-Otherwise you can get mangled databases and repeated feedback mail
-messages.  The fancy word for this is ``idempotency''.  This simply
-means that there should be no difference between making a GET request
-for a particular URL once or multiple times.  This is because the
-HTTP protocol definition says that a GET request may be cached by the
-browser, or server, or an intervening proxy.  POST requests cannot be
-cached, because each request is independent and matters.  Typically,
-POST requests change or depend on state on the server (query or update
-a database, send mail, or purchase a computer).
+(contributed by brian d foy)
+
+Use the CGI.pm module that comes with Perl.  It's quick,
+it's easy, and it actually does quite a bit of work to
+ensure things happen correctly.  It handles GET, POST, and
+HEAD requests, multipart forms, multivalued fields, query
+string and message body combinations, and many other things
+you probably don't want to think about.
+
+It doesn't get much easier: the CGI module automatically
+parses the input and makes each value available through the
+C<param()> function.
+
+	use CGI qw(:standard);
+
+	my $total = param( 'price' ) + param( 'shipping' );
+
+	my @items = param( 'item' ); # multiple values, same field name
+
+If you want an object-oriented approach, CGI.pm can do that too.
+
+	use CGI;
+
+	my $cgi = CGI->new();
+
+	my $total = $cgi->param( 'price' ) + $cgi->param( 'shipping' );
+
+	my @items = $cgi->param( 'item' );
+
+You might also try CGI::Minimal which is a lightweight version
+of the same thing.  Other CGI::* modules on CPAN might work better
+for you, too.
+
+Many people try to write their own decoder (or copy one from
+another program) and then run into one of the many "gotchas"
+of the task.  It's much easier and less hassle to use CGI.pm.
 
 =head2 How do I check a valid mail address?
 
-You can't, at least, not in real time.  Bummer, eh?
+(partly contributed by Aaron Sherman)
 
-Without sending mail to the address and seeing whether there's a human
-on the other hand to answer you, you cannot determine whether a mail
-address is valid.  Even if you apply the mail header standard, you
-can have problems, because there are deliverable addresses that aren't
-RFC-822 (the mail header standard) compliant, and addresses that aren't
-deliverable which are compliant.
-
-Many are tempted to try to eliminate many frequently-invalid
-mail addresses with a simple regex, such as
-C</^[\w.-]+\@(?:[\w-]+\.)+\w+$/>.  It's a very bad idea.  However,
-this also throws out many valid ones, and says nothing about
-potential deliverability, so it is not suggested.  Instead, see
-http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/ckaddr.gz,
-which actually checks against the full RFC spec (except for nested
-comments), looks for addresses you may not wish to accept mail to
-(say, Bill Clinton or your postmaster), and then makes sure that the
-hostname given can be looked up in the DNS MX records.  It's not fast,
-but it works for what it tries to do.
+This isn't as simple a question as it sounds.  There are two parts:
 
-Our best advice for verifying a person's mail address is to have them
-enter their address twice, just as you normally do to change a password.
-This usually weeds out typos.  If both versions match, send
-mail to that address with a personal message that looks somewhat like:
+a) How do I verify that an email address is correctly formatted?
 
-    Dear someuser@host.com,
+b) How do I verify that an email address targets a valid recipient?
 
-    Please confirm the mail address you gave us Wed May  6 09:38:41
-    MDT 1998 by replying to this message.  Include the string
-    "Rumpelstiltskin" in that reply, but spelled in reverse; that is,
-    start with "Nik...".  Once this is done, your confirmed address will
-    be entered into our records.
+Without sending mail to the address and seeing whether there's a human
+on the other end to answer you, you cannot fully answer part I<b>, but
+either the C<Email::Valid> or the C<RFC::RFC822::Address> module will do
+both part I<a> and part I<b> as far as you can in real-time.
+
+If you want to just check part I<a> to see that the address is valid
+according to the mail header standard with a simple regular expression,
+you can have problems, because there are deliverable addresses that
+aren't RFC-2822 (the latest mail header standard) compliant, and
+addresses that aren't deliverable which, are compliant.  However,  the
+following will match valid RFC-2822 addresses that do not have comments,
+folding whitespace, or any other obsolete or non-essential elements.
+This I<just> matches the address itself:
+
+	my $atom       = qr{[a-zA-Z0-9_!#\$\%&'*+/=?\^`{}~|\-]+};
+	my $dot_atom   = qr{$atom(?:\.$atom)*};
+	my $quoted     = qr{"(?:\\[^\r\n]|[^\\"])*"};
+	my $local      = qr{(?:$dot_atom|$quoted)};
+	my $quotedpair = qr{\\[\x00-\x09\x0B-\x0c\x0e-\x7e]};
+	my $domain_lit = qr{\[(?:$quotedpair|[\x21-\x5a\x5e-\x7e])*\]};
+ 	my $domain     = qr{(?:$dot_atom|$domain_lit)};
+	my $addr_spec  = qr{$local\@$domain};
+
+Just match an address against C</^${addr_spec}$/> to see if it follows
+the RFC2822 specification.  However, because it is impossible to be
+sure that such a correctly formed address is actually the correct way
+to reach a particular person or even has a mailbox associated with it,
+you must be very careful about how you use this.
 
-If you get the message back and they've followed your directions,
-you can be reasonably assured that it's real.
+Our best advice for verifying a person's mail address is to have them
+enter their address twice, just as you normally do to change a
+password. This usually weeds out typos. If both versions match, send
+mail to that address with a personal message. If you get the message
+back and they've followed your directions, you can be reasonably
+assured that it's real.
 
 A related strategy that's less open to forgery is to give them a PIN
 (personal ID number).  Record the address and PIN (best that it be a
-random one) for later processing.  In the mail you send, ask them to
+random one) for later processing. In the mail you send, ask them to
 include the PIN in their reply.  But if it bounces, or the message is
-included via a ``vacation'' script, it'll be there anyway.  So it's
+included via a "vacation" script, it'll be there anyway.  So it's
 best to ask them to mail back a slight alteration of the PIN, such as
 with the characters reversed, one added or subtracted to each digit, etc.
 
@@ -407,8 +467,8 @@ with the characters reversed, one added or subtracted to each digit, etc.
 The MIME-Base64 package (available from CPAN) handles this as well as
 the MIME/QP encoding.  Decoding BASE64 becomes as simple as:
 
-    use MIME::Base64;
-    $decoded = decode_base64($encoded);
+	use MIME::Base64;
+	$decoded = decode_base64($encoded);
 
 The MIME-Tools package (available from CPAN) supports extraction with
 decoding of BASE64 encoded attachments and content directly from email
@@ -418,10 +478,10 @@ If the string to decode is short (less than 84 bytes long)
 a more direct approach is to use the unpack() function's "u"
 format after minor transliterations:
 
-    tr#A-Za-z0-9+/##cd;                   # remove non-base64 chars
-    tr#A-Za-z0-9+/# -_#;                  # convert to uuencoded format
-    $len = pack("c", 32 + 0.75*length);   # compute length byte
-    print unpack("u", $len . $_);         # uudecode and print
+	tr#A-Za-z0-9+/##cd;                   # remove non-base64 chars
+	tr#A-Za-z0-9+/# -_#;                  # convert to uuencoded format
+	$len = pack("c", 32 + 0.75*length);   # compute length byte
+	print unpack("u", $len . $_);         # uudecode and print
 
 =head2 How do I return the user's mail address?
 
@@ -429,8 +489,8 @@ On systems that support getpwuid, the $< variable, and the
 Sys::Hostname module (which is part of the standard perl distribution),
 you can probably try using something like this:
 
-    use Sys::Hostname;
-    $address = sprintf('%s@%s', scalar getpwuid($<), hostname);
+	use Sys::Hostname;
+	$address = sprintf('%s@%s', scalar getpwuid($<), hostname);
 
 Company policies on mail address can mean that this generates addresses
 that the company's mail system will not accept, so you should ask for
@@ -447,17 +507,17 @@ Again, the best way is often just to ask the user.
 
 Use the C<sendmail> program directly:
 
-    open(SENDMAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -t -odq")
-                        or die "Can't fork for sendmail: $!\n";
-    print SENDMAIL <<"EOF";
-    From: User Originating Mail <me\@host>
-    To: Final Destination <you\@otherhost>
-    Subject: A relevant subject line
+	open(SENDMAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -t -odq")
+		or die "Can't fork for sendmail: $!\n";
+	print SENDMAIL <<"EOF";
+	From: User Originating Mail <me\@host>
+	To: Final Destination <you\@otherhost>
+	Subject: A relevant subject line
 
-    Body of the message goes here after the blank line
-    in as many lines as you like.
-    EOF
-    close(SENDMAIL)     or warn "sendmail didn't close nicely";
+	Body of the message goes here after the blank line
+	in as many lines as you like.
+	EOF
+	close(SENDMAIL)     or warn "sendmail didn't close nicely";
 
 The B<-oi> option prevents sendmail from interpreting a line consisting
 of a single dot as "end of message".  The B<-t> option says to use the
@@ -473,119 +533,127 @@ probably sendmail.
 
 Or you might be able use the CPAN module Mail::Mailer:
 
-    use Mail::Mailer;
+	use Mail::Mailer;
 
-    $mailer = Mail::Mailer->new();
-    $mailer->open({ From    => $from_address,
-                    To      => $to_address,
-                    Subject => $subject,
-                  })
-        or die "Can't open: $!\n";
-    print $mailer $body;
-    $mailer->close();
+	$mailer = Mail::Mailer->new();
+	$mailer->open({ From    => $from_address,
+					To      => $to_address,
+					Subject => $subject,
+				  })
+		or die "Can't open: $!\n";
+	print $mailer $body;
+	$mailer->close();
 
 The Mail::Internet module uses Net::SMTP which is less Unix-centric than
 Mail::Mailer, but less reliable.  Avoid raw SMTP commands.  There
 are many reasons to use a mail transport agent like sendmail.  These
-include queueing, MX records, and security.
+include queuing, MX records, and security.
 
 =head2 How do I use MIME to make an attachment to a mail message?
 
 This answer is extracted directly from the MIME::Lite documentation.
 Create a multipart message (i.e., one with attachments).
 
-    use MIME::Lite;
+	use MIME::Lite;
 
-    ### Create a new multipart message:
-    $msg = MIME::Lite->new(
-                 From    =>'me@myhost.com',
-                 To      =>'you@yourhost.com',
-                 Cc      =>'some@other.com, some@more.com',
-                 Subject =>'A message with 2 parts...',
-                 Type    =>'multipart/mixed'
-                 );
+	### Create a new multipart message:
+	$msg = MIME::Lite->new(
+				 From    =>'me@myhost.com',
+				 To      =>'you@yourhost.com',
+				 Cc      =>'some@other.com, some@more.com',
+				 Subject =>'A message with 2 parts...',
+				 Type    =>'multipart/mixed'
+				 );
 
-    ### Add parts (each "attach" has same arguments as "new"):
-    $msg->attach(Type     =>'TEXT',
-                 Data     =>"Here's the GIF file you wanted"
-                 );
-    $msg->attach(Type     =>'image/gif',
-                 Path     =>'aaa000123.gif',
-                 Filename =>'logo.gif'
-                 );
+	### Add parts (each "attach" has same arguments as "new"):
+	$msg->attach(Type     =>'TEXT',
+				 Data     =>"Here's the GIF file you wanted"
+				 );
+	$msg->attach(Type     =>'image/gif',
+				 Path     =>'aaa000123.gif',
+				 Filename =>'logo.gif'
+				 );
 
-    $text = $msg->as_string;
+	$text = $msg->as_string;
 
 MIME::Lite also includes a method for sending these things.
 
-    $msg->send;
+	$msg->send;
 
-This defaults to using L<sendmail(1)> but can be customized to use
+This defaults to using L<sendmail> but can be customized to use
 SMTP via L<Net::SMTP>.
 
 =head2 How do I read mail?
 
 While you could use the Mail::Folder module from CPAN (part of the
-MailFolder package) or the Mail::Internet module from CPAN (also part
+MailFolder package) or the Mail::Internet module from CPAN (part
 of the MailTools package), often a module is overkill.  Here's a
 mail sorter.
 
-    #!/usr/bin/perl
-    # bysub1 - simple sort by subject
-    my(@msgs, @sub);
-    my $msgno = -1;
-    $/ = '';                    # paragraph reads
-    while (<>) {
-        if (/^From/m) {
-            /^Subject:\s*(?:Re:\s*)*(.*)/mi;
-            $sub[++$msgno] = lc($1) || '';
-        }
-        $msgs[$msgno] .= $_;
-    }
-    for my $i (sort { $sub[$a] cmp $sub[$b] || $a <=> $b } (0 .. $#msgs)) {
-        print $msgs[$i];
-    }
+	#!/usr/bin/perl
+
+	my(@msgs, @sub);
+	my $msgno = -1;
+	$/ = '';                    # paragraph reads
+	while (<>) {
+		if (/^From /m) {
+			/^Subject:\s*(?:Re:\s*)*(.*)/mi;
+			$sub[++$msgno] = lc($1) || '';
+		}
+		$msgs[$msgno] .= $_;
+	}
+	for my $i (sort { $sub[$a] cmp $sub[$b] || $a <=> $b } (0 .. $#msgs)) {
+		print $msgs[$i];
+	}
 
 Or more succinctly,
 
-    #!/usr/bin/perl -n00
-    # bysub2 - awkish sort-by-subject
-    BEGIN { $msgno = -1 }
-    $sub[++$msgno] = (/^Subject:\s*(?:Re:\s*)*(.*)/mi)[0] if /^From/m;
-    $msg[$msgno] .= $_;
-    END { print @msg[ sort { $sub[$a] cmp $sub[$b] || $a <=> $b } (0 .. $#msg) ] }
+	#!/usr/bin/perl -n00
+	# bysub2 - awkish sort-by-subject
+	BEGIN { $msgno = -1 }
+	$sub[++$msgno] = (/^Subject:\s*(?:Re:\s*)*(.*)/mi)[0] if /^From/m;
+	$msg[$msgno] .= $_;
+	END { print @msg[ sort { $sub[$a] cmp $sub[$b] || $a <=> $b } (0 .. $#msg) ] }
+
+=head2 How do I find out my hostname, domainname, or IP address?
+X<hostname, domainname, IP address, host, domain, hostfqdn, inet_ntoa,
+gethostbyname, Socket, Net::Domain, Sys::Hostname>
+
+(contributed by brian d foy)
+
+The Net::Domain module, which is part of the standard distribution starting
+in perl5.7.3, can get you the fully qualified domain name (FQDN), the host
+name, or the domain name.
+
+	use Net::Domain qw(hostname hostfqdn hostdomain);
+
+	my $host = hostfqdn();
 
-=head2 How do I find out my hostname/domainname/IP address?
+The C<Sys::Hostname> module, included in the standard distribution since
+perl5.6, can also get the hostname.
 
-The normal way to find your own hostname is to call the C<`hostname`>
-program.  While sometimes expedient, this has some problems, such as
-not knowing whether you've got the canonical name or not.  It's one of
-those tradeoffs of convenience versus portability.
+	use Sys::Hostname;
 
-The Sys::Hostname module (part of the standard perl distribution) will
-give you the hostname after which you can find out the IP address
-(assuming you have working DNS) with a gethostbyname() call.
+	$host = hostname();
 
-    use Socket;
-    use Sys::Hostname;
-    my $host = hostname();
-    my $addr = inet_ntoa(scalar gethostbyname($host || 'localhost'));
+To get the IP address, you can use the C<gethostbyname> built-in function
+to turn the name into a number. To turn that number into the dotted octet
+form (a.b.c.d) that most people expect, use the C<inet_ntoa> function
+from the <Socket> module, which also comes with perl.
 
-Probably the simplest way to learn your DNS domain name is to grok
-it out of /etc/resolv.conf, at least under Unix.  Of course, this
-assumes several things about your resolv.conf configuration, including
-that it exists.
+	use Socket;
 
-(We still need a good DNS domain name-learning method for non-Unix
-systems.)
+	my $address = inet_ntoa(
+		scalar gethostbyname( $host || 'localhost' )
+		);
 
 =head2 How do I fetch a news article or the active newsgroups?
 
 Use the Net::NNTP or News::NNTPClient modules, both available from CPAN.
 This can make tasks like fetching the newsgroup list as simple as
 
-    perl -MNews::NNTPClient
-      -e 'print News::NNTPClient->new->list("newsgroups")'
+	perl -MNews::NNTPClient
+	  -e 'print News::NNTPClient->new->list("newsgroups")'
 
 =head2 How do I fetch/put an FTP file?
 
@@ -594,15 +662,23 @@ available from CPAN) is more complex but can put as well as fetch.
 
 =head2 How can I do RPC in Perl?
 
-A DCE::RPC module is being developed (but is not yet available) and
-will be released as part of the DCE-Perl package (available from
-CPAN).  The rpcgen suite, available from CPAN/authors/id/JAKE/, is
-an RPC stub generator and includes an RPC::ONC module.
+(Contributed by brian d foy)
+
+Use one of the RPC modules you can find on CPAN (
+http://search.cpan.org/search?query=RPC&mode=all ).
+
+=head1 REVISION
+
+Revision: $Revision$
+
+Date: $Date$
+
+See L<perlfaq> for source control details and availability.
 
 =head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
 
-Copyright (c) 1997-1999 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
-All rights reserved.
+Copyright (c) 1997-2009 Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, and
+other authors as noted. All rights reserved.
 
 This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
 under the same terms as Perl itself.