NAME
Carp::Notify - Loudly complain in lots of places when things
break badly
AUTHOR
Jim Thomason thomasoniii@yahoo.com
SYNOPSIS
Use it in place of die or croak, or warn or carp.
#with Carp;
use Carp;
if ($something_a_little_bad) { carp("Oh no, a minor error!")};
if ($something_bad) { croak ("Oh no an error!")};
#with Carp::Notify;
use Carp::Notify;
if (something_a_little_bad) {notify("Oh no, a minor error!")};
if ($something_bad) { explode ("Oh no an error!")};
REQUIRES
Perl 5.004, Socket (for emailing)
DESCRIPTION
Carp::Notify is an error reporting module designed for
applications that are running unsupervised (a CGI script, for
example, or a cron job). If a program has an explosion, it
terminates (same as die or croak or exit, depending on
preference) and then emails someone with useful information
about what caused the problem. Said information can also be
logged to a file. If you want the program to tell you something
about an error that's non fatal (disk size approaching full, but
not quite there, for example), then you can have it notify you
of the error but not terminate the program.
Defaults are set up within the module, but they can be
overridden once the module is used, or as individual explosions
take place.
FAQ
So what's the point of this thing?
It's for programs that need to keep running and that need to be
fixed quickly when they break.
But I like Carp
I like Carp too. :)
This isn't designed to replace Carp, it serves a different
purpose. Carp will only tell you the line on which your error
occurred. While this i helpful, it doesn't get your program
running quicker and it doesn't help you to find an error that
you're not aware of in a CGI script that you think is running
perfectly.
Carp::Notify tells you ASAP when your program breaks, so you can
inspect and correct it quicker. You're going to have less
downtime and the end users will be happier with your program
because there will be fewer bugs since you ironed them out
quicker.
Wow. That was a real run-on sentence
Yeah, I know. That's why I'm a programmer and not an author. :)
What about CGI::Carp?
That's a bit of a gray area. Obviously, by its name, CGI::Carp
seems designed for CGI scripts, whereas Carp::Notify is more
obvious for anything (cron jobs, command line utilities, as well
as CGIs).
Carp::Notify also can store more information with less
interaction from the programmer. Plus it will email you, if you'd
like to let you know that something bad happened.
As I understand it, CGI::Carp is a subset feature-wise of
Carp::Notify. If CGI::Carp is working fine for you, great
continue to use it. If you want more flexible error notification,
then try out Carp::Notify.
But I can send email with CGI::Carp by opening up a pipe to send
mail and using that as my error log. What do you have to say
about that?
Good for you. I can too. But most people that I've interacted
with either don't have the know-how to do that or just plain
wouldn't have thought of it. Besides, it's still more of a hassle
than just using Carp::Notify.
Why are your stored variables kept in an array instead of a hash?
Hashes are quicker to delete from, after all
While it is definitely true that variables can be unstored a
little quicker in a hash, I figured that stored variables will
only rarely be unstored later. Arrays are quicker for storing and
accessing the items later. I'll live with the slight performance
hit for the rarer case.
Can I store variables that are in another package from the one
that called Carp::Notify?
You betcha. Just prepend the classpath to the variable name, same
as you always have to to access variables not in your name space.
If the variable is already in your name space (you imported it),
you don't need the classpath since explode will just pick it up
within your own namespace.
Can I store local or my variables?
Not in the use statement, but you can in an explicit explode.
Are there any bugs I should be aware of?
Only if you're annoying. If you import explode into your package,
then subclass it and export explode back out it won't correctly
pick up your stored variables unless you fully qualified them
with the class path ($package::variable instead of just
$variable)
Solution? Don't re-export Carp::Notify. But you already knew that
you should juse re-use it in your subclass, right?
Could I see some more examples?
Sure, that's the next section.
Okay, you've convinced me. What other nifty modules have you
distributed?
Mail::Bulkmail and Text::Flowchart.
Was that a shameless plug?
Why yes, it was.
Examples
#store $data, do email the errors, and alias croak => explode
use Carp::Notify ('$data', 'email_it' => 1, "croak");
#email it to a different address, and don't log it.
use Carp::Notify ("email" => 'thomasoniii@yahoo.com', 'log_it' => 0);
#die with an explosion.
explode("Ye gods! An error!");
#explode, but do it quietly.
explode ("die_quietly" => 1, "Ye gods! An error!");
#notify someone of a problem, but keep the program running
notify ("Ye gods! A little error!");
Version History
v1.00 - August 10, 2000 -
Changed the name from Explode to Carp::Notify.
It's more descriptive and I don't create a new namespace.
v1.00 FC1 - June 9, 2000 - First publically available version.
COPYRIGHT (again)
Copyright (c) 2000 James A Thomason III (thomasoniii@yahoo.com).
All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
itself.
CONTACT INFO
So you don't have to scroll all the way back to the top, I'm Jim
Thomason (thomasoniii@yahoo.com) and feedback is appreciated. Bug
reports/suggestions/question s/etc. Hell, drop me a line to let
me know that you're using the module and that it's made your life
easier. :-)