I receive e-mails from people looking for more information about helping the environment. So I created a form letter. To save myself some time - I created a webpage with a form. From their e-mail, I cut and paste their info into the form and hit submit. The script sends them a message with the info they were asking about, and sends me a different message with their vital info - name and email.

I would like to prevent duplication - should I receive multiple requests from the same person. To do this, I would like to know how to add a line (or lines) to the script - see attached - that would record their e-mail address to flat file database. Then, when I submit - it checks the addresses in the database for duplication. If the address is new - it sends, if not - it takes you to a page that says information has already been sent to this address.

To match the address:


...then it is just a matter of checking whether $found equals 1 or 0. If it is 0 you can print the email to the file, otherwise show an error...eg....

$found ? error() : print_to_file();

Paul, again - you amaze me with the speed of your responses.

I have finally worked out the syntax - and the script runs error free, but my 'if' statement is off - because it is not returning the appropriate error and continues to send to duplicate addresses.

# _________________________________________________________
sub CheckDuplicate {
my $found = 0;
open (EML, "<$database") or die "Could not open $database: $!";
while (chomp ($_ = <EML>)) {
if (/^\Q$in{'Email'}\E$/) {
$found = 1;
last;
}
next;
}
close EML;

if ($found eq 1) {&DoDuplicateError;}

}
sub DoDuplicateError {
print "Location: $DuplicateErrorPage\n\n";
exit;
}
# _________________________________________________________

Try changing eq to == ...you need == for numeric comparisons.

ok - that did not do it - the script still is sending the message to an address listed in the database.

The form element name is 'Email' and the variable in the script is $Email and is set up by

$Email = $in{'Email'};

so is this line correct?

if (/^\Q$in{'Email'}

The reason I ask is to see if it is compairing the right item to the address listed in the database. I also tried with no luck with:

if (/^\Q$in{'$Email'}

The second part would be to have it add an address to the database if $found=0

if ($found == 1) {&DoDuplicateError;}
else <write 'Email' in $database>

What is the format of your database?....it should work with a list of emails like:

me@here.com
foo@bar.com
doo@dar.com

Try printing $in{Email} to see what the value is and double check it exists in the database, then print $found and just compare....I'll test it out now to double check it does actually work

it is just a text file I made in notepad - the only entry is my e-mail address. I called it bio.db

if you open it, there is one line - and on that line is chris@investingdd.com

http://www.investingdd.com/cgi-bin/form/bio.db

You can see a working example here:

http://213.106.15.150/...gi?email=foo@bar.com

Code:

http://213.106.15.150/cgi-bin/test.cgi?code=1

Paul,

I guess I am not successful at looking at the txt file. I have renamed my file emails.txt, and uploaded your test.cgi

http://www.investingdd.com/...hris@investingdd.com

it says that the address is not there, but it is in emails.txt

http://www.investingdd.com/cgi-bin/form/emails.txt

do I need to give it a physical path to the emails.txt file?

>>
do I need to give it a physical path to the emails.txt file?
<<

Yeah a full path, but if it couldn't find the file it should die.

ok -

I am sorry to take up your evening with something so minor. I simply do not understand why it is not finding it - if it is reading the file and the address is there.

Also,

how do I get it to write new addresses to the txt file?

No, you've got a precedence problem:

open FH, "emails.txt" || die "Cannot read emails: $!";

equals:

open FH, ("emails.txt" || die "Cannot read emails: $!");

Change that to:

open FH, "emails.txt" or die "Cannot read emails: $!";

and you'll probably see that it can't find the file. Also, you might want to replace:

/^\Q$email\E$/ and $found = 1, last;

with:

($email eq $_) and $found = 1, last;

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

I always thought the precedence was:

open FH, $file || die $!;

or

open (FH, $file) or die $!;

...not sure why I thought that. Looking at it now, I can see why it needs to be the other way around...doh.

Thanks guys!

For grins, I added some additional records to the emails.txt file. Surprisingly - it will find anything but the last record. That is why I could not find it earlier - as the only (and last) record, it could not be found. Any ideas on that one?

Also - how do I write new e-mail address to that data base before it exits?

I'm not sure why it won't find the last record...it still seems to work for me with one email in the database :(

Did you add a new line after the address at all?

foo@bar.com<return>

The <return> was the key to solving that - I had no additional lines in the text file. Thanks!

Now, is there a simple command to add to the if statement to

if ($found == 1) {&DoDuplicateError;}
else <write 'Email' in $database>

$found ? DoDuplicateError() : WriteEmail();

Then:

The script works fine for checking duplication, however I now get an internal server error with the WriteEmail subroutine. I commented out the lines referring to it - and it works - so there is something in there it does not like.

---

sub CheckDuplicate {
my $found = 0;
open FH, "emails.txt" or die "Cannot read emails: $!";
while (chomp ($_ = <FH>)) {
($Email eq $_) and $found = 1, last;
}
close FH;
if ($found == 1) {&DoDuplicateError;}
# $found ? DoDuplicateError() : WriteEmail();
}


sub DoDuplicateError {
print "Location: $DuplicateErrorPage\n\n";
exit;
}

sub WriteEmail {
# Writes the email to the database.
open (EML, ">> $database") || die "Cannot open $database: $!";
flock (EML, 2) unless $^O eq 'MSWin32';
print (EML, "$in{Email}\n");
close (EML);
return;
}

---

Damn, I'm always doing that...change:

print (EML, "$in{Email}\n");

to

print EML "$in{Email}\n";

Infact I got that error about half an hour ago with a script I'm writing hehe.

That cleared the error, and you are sent to the success page - but nothing is written to the txt file.

---

sub CheckDuplicate {
my $found = 0;
open FH, "emails.txt" or die "Cannot read emails: $!";
while (chomp ($_ = <FH>)) {
($Email eq $_) and $found = 1, last;
}
close FH;
#if ($found == 1) {&DoDuplicateError;}
$found ? DoDuplicateError() : WriteEmail();
}


sub DoDuplicateError {
print "Location: $DuplicateErrorPage\n\n";
exit;
}

sub WriteEmail {
# Writes the email to the database.
open (EML, ">> $database") || die "Cannot open $database: $!";
flock (EML, 2) unless $^O eq 'MSWin32';
print EML "$in{Email}\n";
close (EML);
return;
}

---

Try using $Email ...it seems you may need to use that.

no effect, but I do think it needed the $

---

sub WriteEmail {
# Writes the email to the database.
open (EML, ">> $database") || die "Cannot open $database: $!";
flock (EML, 2) unless $^O eq 'MSWin32';
print EML "$in{$Email}\n";
close (EML);
return;
}

---

No it didn't otherwise you are trying to print a hash value with the email address as the key which won't work :)