quick perl question

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers,,,781-647-1813)]

<jabr at blu.ORG> scribbled:

	On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 Phil Buckley <phil at infoinsomniax.com> wrote:

	> A bit off topic, but I know someone out there will have this on the top
	> of their head... 
	> 
	> I want to pull in a cgi script that holds a handful of common functions.
	> I thought the proper syntax was something like: 
	> 
	> #!/usr/bin/perl
	> 
	> use "common.cgi";
	>
	> but apparently it isn't.
	> 
	> Can someone please gimme a quick dope-slap and remind me.

	*thwap*

	    use CGI qw/:standard/;

Nice slap, but wrong answer.  This doesn't do the same thing at
all, and it's not what was asked for.  More likely, the answer
should be:

	require "common.cgi";

This will read in the file, and compile its contents into the
program.  It's a run-time command, unlike "use", which happens
at compile time.  The "use" command also does some other things
that you probably don't want done if you're just trying to load
in a few of your own routines.

Note that "common.cgi" should end with:
	1;

The require command expects a return value that tells it whether
the package thinks it was loaded successfully.  This tells require
that everything was loaded OK (and a second require of the same file
will be a no-op).

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