[lug] @INC problems

[rm at mamma.varadinet.de]

On Tue, Oct 31, 2000 at 10:51:01AM -0700, John Starkey wrote:
> Ralph. Thanks a lot. 
> 
> > John, what version of meomail are you trying to install? 
> 
> 1.14
> 
> > What happens if you replace 
> >   
> >   require "neomail.conf";
> >   
> > with 
> >   
> >   open NM, "@@@NEOMAILDIR@@@/neomail.conf" or die "Ups $!\n";
> >   do "@@@NEOMAILDIR@@@/neomail.conf";
> > 
> > in 'neomail.template' and run the installation again? 
> > (here we check whether neomaol.conf is readable by the 
> > perl interpreter).
> 
> So if it isn't readable I'd get an error while running setup.pl or the
> app? 

You should get a runtime error when the app is executing.
If you changed the lines in neomail.pl and the script doesn't die
than the permissions on neomail.conf seem to be ok.

> I reran the setup and everything is fine. I'm getting the same
> response while trying to access it from my browser now as I did when I
> changed
> 
> push (@INC, "/var/neomail")
> 
> to 
> 
> push (@INC, ".")
> 
> And move .conf to the . dir. It's able to find the .conf file but the
> browser is showing:

"." ??? This is the current working directory. There should be nothing
wrong  with push '(@INC, "/var/neomail")' as long as the file can be
found there.

> NEOMAIL ERROR
> Default!
> 
> Kinda vague eh?? No error report in apache's error_log or in the
> neomail.log. 

Yes, i wouldn't call neomails error handling a perfect solution.
You could use one of the CPAN modules for better error diagnosis.
As a first attempt i would open neomail.pl and locate the error
function (in vi: /sub neomailerror <enter>) and then change 

    print shift;

to

   print shift, "($!)";

if you are lucky the variable $! (last error message) is still
there and contains usefull information.

> Do you know of a trick that will echo the diagnostic data to the
> screen? Maybe I can step through it to find out what line it's chocking
> on?

There is a Perl module that'll send warnings and fatals to the
browser ('perldoc CGI::Carp' will help). Also you can install
CGI::Debug and add 'use CGI::Debug( report => 'everything', on => 'anything' );'
at the top of neomail.pl. And if that's not verbose enough:

  use Diagnostics qw(  verbose );

at the begining top of the script.

> Hey, thanks again, you really went outta yer way to help. I
> really appreciate it.

Thanks,

 Ralf