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#define SIGILL 6 /* blech */ Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code

Random Quote
Code reads a random quote from a text file and inserts it into an HTML page.

Posted Thursday, July 7, 2005

This little script reads a random quote from a text file and inserts it into an HTML page. In fact, it is the same script that generates the quotes on each page of this site.

Start with a plain text file formatted so that each line contains a single quote, a delimiter (e.g. a tab) and the author.

Next we'll walk through our little script. Lines starting with '#' are comments.

#!/usr/bin/perl
# file: random.pl

#always use warnings and strict
use warnings;
use strict;

#useful for debugging, but turn off for production
use CGI::Carp qw(carpout fatalsToBrowser);

#path to your file
my $quotes = 'file.txt';

# open for reading
open(QUOTE, "$quotes")
or die "Can't open $quotes: $!\n";

#read a random line
my $line;
srand;
rand($.) < 1 && ($line = $_) while <QUOTE>;

#splits on tab...change as needed
my ($quote, $author) = split("\t", $line);

#return output
print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n";
print "$quote \n$author\n";

Lastly, you will need something like:
<!--#include virtual="/cgi-bin/random.pl"-->
in your HTML where you want the text to appear.

Make sure your script is executable and enjoy!

Here is a copy of the script. random.pl

Here is a copy of the quotes. file.txt

The use of the camel image in association with the Perl language is a trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Used with permission.
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