Gossamer Forum: General: Perl Programming: Count elements in an array

Hi,

I'm using an XML feed to supplement the links on my LSQL site, and have a small problem.

When the XML feed only returns a single result, my script fails offering the following error:

Not an ARRAY reference at /home/qango/public_html/cgi-local/dir/admin/Links/User/Search.pm line 197

I need it to either, display a single link from the feed without failing (something it hasn't been able to do in the past), or TRAP a single result and bypass the XML printing so the error doesn't occur.

Here's the relevant section of the Search.pm script, I wonder if anyone can help?

Code:

 
# Return if no results. 
unless ($link_count or $cat_count) { 
# CHECK FOR SPONSORED LINKS IF NO LOCAL RESULTS FOUND 
# Get 20 XML results to put in the 'Sponsored Links - Not Found' search results template 
my $XML_result = ''; 
my $query = $IN->param('query'); 
$query =~ s/ /\+/g; 
$query =~ s/\W/+/g; 
my $page = get("http://feed.feedpatrol.com/?affid=xxx&maxcount=20&search=$query&xtype=1&xformat=xml&ip=$ENV{HTTP_REFERER}"); 
  
# if we can't get the XML feed blank out the XML results and return 
if (!$page) {  
return { error => Links::language('SEARCH_NOLINKS'), search_banner => $banner_html, search_button => $button_html, search_sky => $sky_html, search_text => $text_html, term => $term }; 
} 
else { 
# parse the XML feed to see if there are any results 
my $ref = XMLin($page); 
my $link_count = scalar($ref); 
# if there are no results for this query from XML source, blank the XML results and return 
if (!$link_count) {  
return { error => Links::language('SEARCH_NOLINKS'), search_banner => $banner_html, search_button => $button_html, search_sky => $sky_html, search_text => $text_html, term => $term }; 
} 
else { 
# Don't process the feed if there is only one XML link found (avoids ARRAY problem caused by single link only) 
if ($link_count <= 1) {  
return { error => Links::language('SEARCH_NOLINKS'), search_banner => $banner_html, search_button => $button_html, search_sky => $sky_html, search_text => $text_html, term => $term }; 
} 
# parse the XML feed into usable results for the template link_xml and link_xml_spon 
my ($count, $html_links); 
foreach ($count = 0; $count <= 20; $count++) { 
# catch if there are no more results... 
if (!$ref->{LISTING}->[$count]->{TITLE}) { last; } 
# get the variables all set up... 
my $Description = $ref->{LISTING}->[$count]->{DESCRIPTION}; 
my $Title = $ref->{LISTING}->[$count]->{TITLE}; 
my $Sitehost = $ref->{LISTING}->[$count]->{SITEHOST}; 
my $Sitelink = $ref->{LISTING}->[$count]->{LINK}; 
my $Sitelink = &url_decode ($Sitelink); 
# put the links into HTML format...  
$XML_result .= Links::SiteHTML::display('link_xml', { Description => $Description, Title => $Title, Sitehost => $Sitehost, Sitelink => $Sitelink }); 
} 
} 
} 
return { xml => Links::language('SEARCH_NOLINKS'), search_banner => $banner_html, search_button => $button_html, search_sky => $sky_html, search_text => $text_html, term => $term, XML_result => $XML_result }; 
}

The line in red is where the error is reported from, and it appears that it fails because there isn't a second [#2] element in the array?

Any help with this much appreaciated.

All the best
Shaun

Hi,

This is a common problem with XML::Simple :(

Basically, if only one result is found... then its returned as a hash, while if more are found... its an array.

Something like this should help;

Code:
my @links; 
if (ref $ref->{LISTING} eq 'ARRAY') { 
  for (my $i = 0; $i <= 50) { 
     my $link = $ref->{LISTING}[$i];   # may need to use $ref->{LISTING}->[$i]      
     if (!$link->{TITLE}) { last; } 
     push @links, $link; 
  } 
} else { 
 my $link = $ref->{LISTING}; 
 push @links, $link; 
}

..then you can loop through the links;

Code:
foreach (@links) { 
  print qq{Title: $_->{TITLE}\n}; 
  print qq{URL: $_->{URL}\n}; 
 ###etc  
}

Hopefully that'll get you on the right tracks Smile

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk