How probably not to hand over a variable from one perl script to another

[Ilya Zakharevich]

[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to
Ted Zlatanov

[[Discussion of using Data:umper for serialization as being a lunacy
omitted due to a complete agreement. ;-]]

Data:umper may also save data you don't want saved, e.g. a password
in a data structure you didn't know you were dumping.

Pass data with a data language. I suggested YAML or XML - there are
many others.

Ted, I think the last objection is misplaced. Data language wouldn't
help if you have some data you don't want saved...

And, of course, now there are builtin *quick* serialization methods.

perldoc Storable

Hope this helps,
Ilya

 

[Ted Zlatanov]

Ted, I think the last objection is misplaced. Data language wouldn't
help if you have some data you don't want saved...

True. I think the advice should be, "think before you save data, to
make sure you're not saving things you shouldn't" - regardless of the
data saving method or language. Thanks for catching that.

And, of course, now there are builtin *quick* serialization methods.

perldoc Storable

I remember how, at a previous job, some genius decided it would be a
good idea to freeze() complex structures into a database column. I
didn't have to deal with it, fortunately, but I can imagine the fun.

Anyhow, definitely for speed I would go with Storable, but a neutral
data language is generally better otherwise.

Ted

 

[Ted Zlatanov]

http://www.json.org/
http://search.cpan.org/~makamaka/JSON-1.07/lib/JSON.pm

I wish people realized that posting URLs is not a useful way to say
something.

I find JSON less readable than YAML and far less universal than XML.
It's terrific if you need to interact with JavaScript, of course.

Anyhow, the particular data language is not as important as the
thought process that goes into selecting and utilizing it.

Ted