The process for the current project is to pull a *.csv file from an email account, parse it into a database query/queries, generate html code and then store the html in a directory structure while also storing the report information in the database.

Unfortunately during testing I have had some typo’s and the generated report stored in the directory structure did not display as intended. The changes needed really didn’t warrant processing the script again and adding more useless entries into the database, so I decided to change the script and then update the html in the report.

Having over 100 reports generated, I needed a simple script to do this. I had done this with bash before, but I thought there had to be an easier way then looping through a for statement, saving the changes to a new file and then moving the new file to replace the old.

In comes Perl. Looking through some posts, I found that you can edit text in the file with Perl. The command goes something like this:

perl -pi -w -e 's/search/replace/g;' *.html

Here is a further explanation of what is going on.

-p assume loop (like -n) but print line also, like sed
-i edit <> files in place (makes backup if extension supplied)
-w enable many useful warnings (RECOMMENDED)
-e execute the follwing line of code

The code referred to after the -e is just a search and replace regular expression.

The ‘s/’ means to search and start your regular expression to search for.

You then enter your expression that you want to search for. You need to make sure you escape out special characters with the back-slash [\]. The forward slash is used to separate what you are searching for and what you want to replace. The replace section is an expression as well and you need to treat special characters the same way.

Finally you have the last forward slash indicates the end of your replace expression and the ‘g’ indicates global.

Here is an example of how I would change the directory used for images from ‘/image/’ to ‘images/’ for all the files in a directory with the extension of .html.

perl -pi -w -e 's/\/image\//images\//g;' *.html

That is how you do it. If you have to go through multiple directories, you could use a bash or perl command to loop through those directories. Hope it didn’t confuse you too much.

Download the latest version 2.1 of the plugin at http://showMessage.dingobytes.com/download/

Please see the site, as the information below is for previous versions. This has been updated!

This is my first attempt at a jQuery Plugin, so although it works fine for my liking, I am sure there are many things that can be done more effectively.

• Message displayed at the top of page (no scrolling to view error)
• Multiple messages can be displayed
• Options to automatically close the message after set delay
• Message closes with blur/’esc’ key/’close’ link

• Download
• Install
• Options
• Examples

<script type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/jquery.showMessage.min.js"
charset="utf-8"><\/script>

#showMessage li
{
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, clean, sans-serif;
font-size: large;
font-weight: bold;
color: red;
}

thisMessage:		[''],
backgroundColor:	'#F7F7F7',
color:			'#000000',
opacity:		90,
displayNavigation:	true,
autoClose:		false,
delayTime:		5000

To save some time, I will explain the javascript and how to call it. You can grab the css from the example page.

<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
var listing = {

g:function(id) {
    return document.getElementById(id);
},

// function to change the background and border of listing on mouse over
highlight:function(id) {
    listing_el = listing.g("listing" + id);
    if(id != 1) { //this is what to do for all divs other then first one
        id_above = id - 1;
        listing_above_el = listing.g("listing" + id_above);
        listing_above_el.style.border = "#fff 2px solid"; //removes border on result above highlighted
        listing_el.style.backgroundColor = "#fffae7";
        listing_el.style.border = "#837b97";
    }
    else {
        listing_el.className = "highlight_el";
        listing_el.style.backgroundColor = "#fffae7";
        listing_el.style.border = "#837b97";
    }
},

normal:function(id) {
    listing_el = listing.g("listing" + id);
    if(id != 1) {
        id_above = id - 1;
        listing_above_el = listing.g("listing" + id_above);
        listing_above_el.style.borderBottom = "#cccccc 2px dotted"; //restores border to result above highlighted
	listing_el.style.backgroundColor = "#ffffff";
	listing_el.style.border = "#ffffff 2px solid";
        listing_el.style.borderBottom = "#cccccc 2px dotted";
    }
    else {
        listing_el.className = "normal_el";
        listing_el.style.backgroundColor = "#ffffff";
	listing_el.style.border = "#ffffff 2px solid";
        listing_el.style.borderBottom = "#cccccc 2px dotted";
    }
}
//]]>
</script>

The HTML can be spit through some query or loop and is straight forward.

<div id="listing1" class="listing" onmouseover="listing.highlight('1');" onmouseout="listing.normal('1');">
<div id="listing_top">
<span class="left">
<a href="javascript:void(0);" title="121 Initech Rd">121 Initech Rd</a>
</span>
</div>
<div id="listing_left">
<a href="javascript:void(0);" title="121 Initech Rd"><img src="images/inventory/thumbs/0/0/0/000976.jpg" alt="121 Initech Rd" class="displayed" width="151" /></a>
2.00 bed 3.00 bath 1296 sqft<br />
Lake Home<br />
Listing: 08-1979
</div>
<div id="listing_right"><span class="large_price">$198699</span> One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. "What's happened to me? " he thought. It wasn't a dream.</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
</div></code></code>

<code><div id="listing2" class="listing" onmouseover="listing.highlight('2');" onmouseout="listing.normal('2');">
<div id="listing_top">
<span class="left">
<a href="javascript:void(0);" title="121 Initech Rd">121 Initech Rd</a>
</span>
</div>
<div id="listing_left">
<a href="javascript:void(0);" title="121 Initech Rd"><img src="images/inventory/thumbs/0/0/0/000976.jpg" alt="121 Initech Rd" class="displayed" width="151" /></a>
2.00 bed 3.00 bath 1296 sqft<br />
Lake Home<br />
Listing: 08-1979
</div>
<div id="listing_right"><span class="large_price">$198699</span> His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table - Samsa was a travelling salesman - and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
</div>