use Perl

Here's a scenario where ColdFusion is a pleasure to work with:

<cfquery name="get_all_products" dataSource="ODBC_DSN">
SELECT id,title FROM products
</cfquery>
...
<cfoutput query="get_all_products">
<option value="#id#">#title#</option>
</cfoutput>

The same thing in Perl ... well, you know. I'd have to use DBI, setup the db handle, create a statement handle and iterate through its fetchrow_*, all with proper error handling, of course. :)

Here's a scenario where Perl cleans house. Let's say I have a Web form with multiple records with multiple input fields and so I name the fields with the naming convention fieldname _ ID# (i.e. title_1, caption_1 ... title_52, caption_52). So in the code that would process that form, I could gather them up pretty easily with Perl (this is pseudocode):

use CGI;
use DBI;
my $dbh = DBI->connect( .... );
my $q = new CGI;
my @ids;
my $sth = $dbh->prepare( 'UPDATE products SET title=?,caption=? WHERE id=?' );
foreach ( grep( /^\w+_\d+$/, $q->param ) ) {
    my ( $id ) = /^\w+_(\d+)$/;
    next if grep { $_ == $id }, @ids; # I forget ... comma in there or not?
    push @ids, $id;
    $sth->execute( $q->param( "title_$id" ), $q->param( "caption_$id" ), $id );
}

But here's what my ColdFusion code looks like so far (*cringe*) ... again, baby-talk and not even working yet:

<cfset ids = ''>

<cfloop index = 'key' list = '#Form.FieldNames#'>
# Notice the line below. ColdFusion has some regular expression support
# but its regex functions do not return matches - just the position within
# the string. It has some match support, but if you use it, it returns
# an array of position markers where the matches took place - not the
# matches themselves. So I have to resort to replacing the non-digit
# characters out of the field name so I can deal with it.
# Oh, btw, this really isn't a valid comment - CF comments look like this:
<!--- This is a CF Comment --->
    <cfset id_num = REReplaceNoCase( #key#, "[^0-9]", '', "ALL" )>
# Ok, notice ListFindNoCase() ... how wacky is it to have case-sensitivity
# determined by the method name (yes, there's a ListFind() that is
# case-sensitive. Oh, btw, all variable names in ColdFusion are case-
# insensitive. So I could say ids, IDS or IdS in the
# line below and it wouldn't matter.
    <cfif id_num GE 0 AND ListFindNoCase( ids, id_num ) IS 0 >
        IDS: <cfdump var="#id_num#">
        <cfset ids = ListAppend( ids, id_num )>
    </cfif>
</cfloop>

<cfloop index = 'i' list = "#ids#">
    <cfset sku_field = "Form.sku_" & #i#>
    <cfset title_field = "Form.title_" & #i#>
    <cfset caption_field = "Form.caption_" & #i#>
    <cfset image_field = "Form.image_" & #i#>
    <cfset pricing_field = "Form.pricing_" & #i#>
    <cfset special_pricing_field = "Form.special_pricing_" & #i#>
    <cfset sql = "UPDATE products SET sku='" & Evaluate(#sku_field#) & ",title='#title_field#',caption='#caption_field#',image='#image_field#',pricing= '#pricing_field#',special_pricing='#special_pricing_field#' WHERE id=#i# LIMIT 1">
    <cfdump var="#sql#">
    <cfoutput><P>SQL: #sql#</P></cfoutput>
    <!---
    <cfquery datasource = 'ODBC_DSN' name = ''>
    </cfquery>
    --->

</cfloop>


Fun Fun!

Peace,

Jason