-----Original Message-----
   From: owner-cgi-list@jann.com [mailto:owner-cgi-list@jann.com]On Behalf
   Of Stephen Martin
   Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 1:32 PM
   To: Cgi-List@Jann.Com
   Subject: [CGI] format


   Hello,
   recently a fellow perl coder told me that

   format NAME
   @<<<<<
   $blah
   .

   was a depreciated feature?
   Is this true?
   If so.. what should I replace such constructs with?


Well, if it is of any comfort, "deprecated" doesn't mean "unavailable" or
"unsupported".  It means that the feature you are using will be phased out
in newer versions of Perl.  This pretty much applies to every type of
software.

This means that you've got a bit of time before you'll see any problems with
your code, so that you have plenty of time to update it.  Note that this
isn't really an issue at all so long as you stick to the version of Perl
which you are using at this time.  Even now, I still haven't heard or read
anything to the effect that Perl was going to phase out it's format
data-type and its built-in function called format().

Understanding this, it is still a good idea to try and make your code as
forward-compatible as possible.  So Stephen, the way I've solved this
problem myself is through the use of two or three other methods which mimic
or replace the functionality of the format data-type and built-in function
of Perl.  The reasons I've tried to stay away from it in the past are not
really any good ones, I guess -- I've just found it easier and less
complicated than moving to a C-style variable interpolation mechanism for
strings when Perl has its own native features which do a lot of the same
things.  (Interpolation means to stuff the value of a given variable into a
block of text.)

What you give up in some respects when using Perl's native string
interpolation over the C-style, C-implemented format() function is the
ability to get variable values that you stuff into the text block to do
things like appear right-justified, justified, or truncated at a certain
length without having to do anything tricky.  The ability to do those things
is however made possible in an easy and almost seemless manner through the
use of one or a few text manipulation modules (code libraries) which come
standard with your Perl distribution or may be downloaded from the CPAN.

OK, so on to the few methods I use instead of format().

   1.) templates with embedded perl tokens.  (it works
       like ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, and PHP)

       You can use my own Template::Parser module available
       at
http://www.atrixnet.com/cgi-bin/archive.pl/pub/modules/Template/Parser.pm
       or other libraries which are more generic and
       probably more suited to a universal implementation
       at the CPAN.

   2.) sprintf([template], [variable list])  This works
       much like format() does, but isn't really made
       for multi-line interpolation -- although it is
       possible.  You can get the same types of text
       justification and truncation abilities as with
       format().

   3.) try Damian Conway's text::wrap module.  I'm not
       sure if the name is capitalized or not, but it
       is easy to find at the CPAN.

   4.) there's tons of other text manipulation libraries
       available for free at the CPAN which you can find
       easily by clicking over to http://search.cpan.org/
       and selecting the category for text manipulation --
       after all, text manipulation is one of the most
       powerful uses of Perl, and a main focus of its
       creator when Larry Wall first gave Perl to the world.

       Perl itself stands for "Practical extraction and
       reporting language" -- a name very indicative of
       its ability to do wild and crazy things with text.


    Tommy Butler
    Internet Strategies, Inc.   Everything is Possible

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