System "wget"command

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra at baylink.com>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: System "wget"command


> On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 02:44:03PM -0400, Brian K. White wrote:
>> > /usr/local/bin/wget -O /dev/null -w4 -T 5 -t 1 -q 'http://192.169.0.12/
>> > cgi-bin/callback/new_cust.pl?code=M78982' 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null
>
> Oops.  Missed that you'd said this.
>
> Never mind

I dunno. We use system commands an awful lot, including wget specifically, 
and also including large multiline commands built up into one variable,
Way more than enough that if it were doing something messy one out of every 
100 times our phones would kill us.
and we never see this.

I suspet we don't have the full picture here. Something like shell globbing 
only occasionally finding a filename match and expending itself, thsu 
causing either the filename or an error message to appear where normally 
nothing does. Or the sa variable being shown (on a screen, a command in 
auto...) or the sa variable no being rigorously zero'ed out and/or handled 
to keep any leading/trailing junk trimmed.

given the command has -O /dev/null, and -q, and 1>/dev/null, and 2>/dev/null
it must either be a failure in the shell itself, or in filepro's system(), 
or there is something we don't know yet.

only because I use system a lot myself on sco and linux just this same way, 
I don't suspect filepro or the shell.

If it were me I would now make up a dummy test starting with a an @key that 
runs a 500 count loop that runs a system command that just has
system noredraw "echo you should not see this >/dev/null 2>&1"

then add progressively more to the system command to bring it closer to 
emulating the real command until it starts failing.

next I'd just add the counter variable
system noredraw "echo you should not see this" < ct <" >/dev/null 2>&1"

then
system "echo 'url & query string' >/dev/null 2>&1"

then a wget command but a simple one with a static url and no query string

then one that looks just like the real one, but fudge the cgi script name so 
it doesn't hit the real cgi, and use static dummy data in place of the 
variables

then use rand() in place of the variables so the data is no longer static 
without having to go through hoops to get real data from other records

if none of that fails, then you probably have something wrong with the data 
in the varibles being used in the real command, not with the command itself
Or, if some version of the fake command fails then the problem depends on 
which version fails, and exactly how.

I'd also change those /dev/nulls to temp file names that are really unique 
and look at them
maybe put a read command in the system command at the end to make it pause 
for a carriage return (specifically that way instead of "show @" to avoid 
the confision of fp even touching the screen at all during the loop) that 
way when it fails, you'll be able to see what temp files to look in for 
clues, or just see the clue on screen maybe.

Brian K. White    brian at aljex.com    http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
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