[htmltmpl] Script under mod_perl occasionally gets garbage opening template

[Andy P. <ap...@gl...>]

Hi,

First I apologise if I'm being dense, but this problem is really confusing =
the heck out of me...

I've written a photo archive script using CGI::Application (ver. 3.21) and =
HTML::Template (ver. 2.6), which ran fine as a standalone CGI script. Now I=
've ported it across to using mod_perl, and I'm noticing a really strange i=
ntermittent problem. Basically it seems that sometimes, especially when you=
 request a page for the first time for a long while, when HTML::Template op=
ens the .tmpl file what it gets is being somehow corrupted. This evidences =
itself as an error about not recognising the TMPL_... tag - I tweaked the e=
rror message slightly to print the content of the $which variable (which sh=
ould hold the tag being parsed, it seems?) - this comes from line 2230:

  HTML::Template->new() : Unknown or unmatched TMPL construct (T0B5=20

What it *should* be printing is the contents of the $which variable in brac=
kets, but it seems there are some weird control characters which trash the =
rest of the string somehow (at least that's my guess). I haven't put enough=
 trace in to be able to tell the entire contents of the file that's being r=
ead - perhaps this is just trampling the $which variable rather than the wh=
ole file? In case it's useful, the line as I've amended it is:

  die "HTML::Template->new() : Unknown or unmatched TMPL construct ($which
) at $fname : line $fcounter.";

I think what I'm doing should be fairly standard - I'm calling tmpl_path() =
of CGI::Application in the cgiapp_prerun() method, and then the tmpl_load()=
 method later on - it's at this point the error occurs.

Anyway, I realise this isn't necessarily a HTML::Template problem, but I fi=
gured it was a good place to start since presumably some of you have experi=
ence of using HTML::Template with mod_perl, and the potential problems. My =
best guess is that somehow running the script on a newly created sub-proces=
s is causing the problem, but I can't for the life of me see how - the fact=
 that the open succeeds, but then we get garbage later, is what baffles me.

I've tried this with and without caching of templates - caching seemed to m=
ake the problem happen less often, but that might have been my imagination.=
 Also, reloading the page a few times usually sorts the problem out, which =
seems vaguely consistent with the "sub-process opening a file for the first=
 time" problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it's simply a more appropria=
te place to redirect requests for help! Also any options to any of the code=
 involved to produce more helpful logs would be really handy - I'm complete=
ly new to using mod_perl so I may well have fallen foul of some common trap!

Cheers,

    - Andy



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