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Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 11:50:36 +0000
From: Richard Morte <ric@sinclairassoc.force9.co.uk>
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To: freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: Help with Perl script
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Hello,

I've successfully written a perl script as a front-end to swish-e in
search mode. However, I'm out of luck in trying to get it to run in
'index' mode.

The swish binary runs OK, (visible quite nicely in 'top') and valid
parameters are being passed. I can even retrieve the verbose output
whilst swish traverses and indexes the document tree, but it never
creates the index file. Here's what I've tried...

Attempt 1:
    system("$swish_bin -i \'$target\' -c \'$config\' -f \'$idx_file\' -l
-v \'$verbose\' -S '$s_method\'")
    || local_errors(push (@errors, "600~Could not exec swish:
$swish_bin: $!"));

Attempt 2:
    exec $swish_bin,'-i',$target,
                    '-c',$config,
                    '-f',$idx_file,
                    '-l',
                    '-v',$verbose,
                    '-S',$s_method;
    || local_errors(push (@errors, "600~Could not exec swish:
$swish_bin: $!"));

Attempt 3:
    $status = system($swish_bin,'-i',$target,
                                '-c',$config,
                                '-f',$idx_file,
                                '-l',
                                '-v',$verbose,
                                '-S',$s_method);
    local_errors(push (@errors, "600~Could not exec swish: $swish_bin:
$!")) unless $status == 0;
    (Note that the exit value ($status) is 65280. When in search mode a
similar construct returns 0 
    - which is what I would have expected here...)

Desperate (and somewhat useless) Attempt 4:
    open(SWISH, "$swish_bin -i $target -c $config -f $idx_file -l -v
$verbose -S $s_method|")
    or (error-handler stuff, etc)

FYI:
$swish_bin is the absolute path and filename to the swish executable
$target is the document directory tree (absolute path)
$config is an absolute path and filename to a configuration file
$idx_file is the index file to create (but never gets created), again
abs path and filename
$verbose determines the volume of messages to STDOUT during indexing
(0-3)
$s_method is either 'fs' or 'http'

None of the attempts produce errors - it's as though the indexing takes
place in hyperspace and never touches the hard disk. I've been through
the O'Reilley Perl books, but cannot see what I'm doing wrong.

The direction I'm heading in is to run a process that will create the
index file, then figure out a way for the script not to have to wait
until the process completes (processing 1000's of files can take hours)
(Attempt 2 does this already, Attempt 3 will do this if I direct output
to /dev/null?), and finally figure out a way to see how the process
ended to see if indexing is successful.

Apologies for an off-topic posting, but I'm completely stuck.

Thanks to anyone who can help!
Ric


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