function doubling my data! why?

[tarek990]

hello,
im new to perl.. im editting a perl program i purchased..
the problem: whenever i call this function twice (once for every element i want to edit) it modifies the intended element (what it is supposed to do) AND duplicated all the data in the .dat file (the database file)..

the function:
[sub modify_element
{
my ($element, $new_value) = @_;
if(&pm_check eq "yes")
{
&init($wholeline);
my $s = $input{'session'};
%input = %values;
$input{'session'} = $s;
if ($element ne "")
{$input{$element} = $new_value;}
$input{'action'} = "modified";
&pm_modify;
}
else { &err($error_message{'no permission'});&end; } }]

how can i call this function more than once without my data doubling?
or what can i do?
any suggestions or help is appreciated..
thanks,
Tarek

[volatilegx]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, tarek990 :)

The trouble here is that we don't have enough info about the script to comment on it. There are a lot of subroutines here which we don't know the workings of. I recommend you take your question to the author of the script.

[IanKelley]

Most likely you've got a varible or array being appended to somewhere. Solve the problem by initializing it to '' or undefing it at the beginning of the function.

[tarek990]

hello,
thanks for the replies.. i cant go to the script writer coz my support period has expired..
here is the pm_modify function

sub pm_modify
{
 foreach (keys %values) {
    if (not exists $input{$_}) {
        $input{$_} = $values{$_};
    }
 }
 my %before = %values;
 $modify = 1;
 &pm_delete;
 &pm_register;
 my $changes = "";
 foreach(@base){
if($input{$_} ne $before{$_}){
if($input{$_} eq " " && $before{$_} eq ""){
next;
}
if($_ eq "action"){
next;
}
$changes .= "\n------------------------------\n$_:\nbefore:$before{$_}\nafter:$input{$_}\n";
}
 }
 #if($changes ne ""){
 #&sendemail($from, $from, "Modification Changes for $input{'login'}", $changes); 
 #}
}

what variable should i initialize or declare as ".
im really new to this so please help..

thanks,
Tarek

[IanKelley]

$changes looks like a likely candidate. :-)

[tarek990]

thanks for the reply..
$changes is already declared as "" in the function pm_modify as you can see up there..
any more sugestions?
thanks,
Tarek

[killermonkey]

I think you should help this program practice good programming technique by setting up your 'foreach' loops like this:

foreach $var (keys %input) {
$input{$var} = 'BLAH';
}

I personnally hate it when people use $_ or other crazy variables because they can easily be overwritten or corrupted without you even knowing it!

I suggest leaving Perl's internal variables to perl's functions and use your own on your functions.

Can you post an example of the output this function produces and what you put in as input? Thanks!