From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 10 10:15:30 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 624F316A4CE for ; Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:15:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (clunix.cl.msu.edu [35.9.2.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E405243D1D for ; Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:15:29 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by clunix.cl.msu.edu (8.11.7p1+Sun/8.11.7) id i1AI7R407407; Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:07:27 -0500 (EST) From: Jerry McAllister Message-Id: <200402101807.i1AI7R407407@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org (Jonathon McKitrick) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:07:27 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <20040210180252.GC48583@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> from "Jonathon McKitrick" at Feb 10, 2004 06:02:52 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: Jerry McAllister cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Choosing between sh and perl for system scripts X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:15:30 -0000 > > On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 11:48:48AM -0500, Jerry McAllister wrote: > : > > : > > : > Now that I have a desktop workstation and network, I'm trying to learn the > : > true admin side of BSD, such as the periodic tasks, and how to automate > : > things. I see perl all over the system, and I know it's powerful and easy > : > to use. What might help me decide which tool would be best for the scripts > : > I want to write? > : > : Probably the two main things to consider are what type of processing > : you will be doing and how much it will be used. > : > : Perl is great for text processing - grabbing things out of text > : streams, mashing it around, creating easily searched and manipulated > : tables of that sort of stuff. It is not really so good at anything > : that needs a lot of floating point number crunching. > > One place I saw it used that piqued my interest was as an aid to maintaining > source code. The book 'The Pragmatic Programmer' talks about perl scripts > being used to mark areas that need attention, extract comments, make reports > on changes, and so on. Well, since that would be a lot of mucking through text files, Perl would probably be a good choice for it. > : Perl is good for scripts that get used now and then. But, it is > : kind of big so if the script is likely to be used a lot - every > : second or so, then you will want to use something leaner. Probably > : either sh or even write it in C. > > For me on my home box, I will probably be using it to run backups, cvsup, > build world, and so on. Hmmm. Could go either way on those. Most of our backup stuff is in either sh because it is not very complicated or C because it needs to run SUID. ////jerry > > jm > -- > My other computer is your Windows box. >