Monthly Archives: February 2012

Using hypnotoad in production, anyone?

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So, you're using hypnotoad in production. And it works perfectly for you. Maybe you have an Nginx or Apache in front of it configured as reverse proxy. Everything's great. Right? Right. Then I have a zillion questions for you.

Maybe I don't understand how it works, but I'm having the following problems:

  • "sometimes" hypnotoad won't stop. I usually try to stop it with: 
    hypnotoad --stop /path/to/my/script
  • I use symlinks to deploy applications, so for example I deploy in /opt/myapp and each new deployment gets a timestamped folder, /opt/myapp/releases/20120224-180801.

    Then there's a symlink that always points to the last deployed version, /opt/myapp/current → /opt/myapp/releases/{whatever-datetime}. Now, using hypnotoad --stop /opt/myapp/current doesn't work, because hypnotoad probably uses the actual filename, not the symlink, to identify the running application.

    That's fine, but then how can I stop it reliably? I wish it had a hypnotoad --force-stop mode or something.

  • Last problem, when I push a new deployment, and stop and restart hypnotoad, often the application doesn't work properly, it only generates exceptions for unknown reasons. Stopping and restarting again manually usually fixes the problems…

    • I was a bit frustrated today, so I decided to switch back to starman. I have never ever had a problem with it, so I will stick to it for now. But I would still be interested to know whether you use hypnotoad in production and how well it works. Write in the small box below, you don't need to register. Thanks :)

Find uses of perl 5.10 features in your code: a bit of PPI magic

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This morning on IRC we were talking about old perl installations, and how forgetting the use 5.010 but using 5.10 features, for example the // operator, can be a problem.

I suggested maybe using a git hook would be an idea, so I assembled this proof of concept script to test for 5.10-isms but without a use 5.010; statement. It's too long to include here, so I put in on Github (https://gist.github.com/1875528).

The script uses the "impossible" PPI module to parse the Perl code and extract information about used operators using PPI::Token::Operator, to catch // or ~~ or similar, and use statements, with PPI::Statement::Include.

It's meant to be run as part of a post-commit hook or similar. I had searched for similar modules in the Perl::Critic space but found nothing of sorts. Maybe I just didn't look too well?

Anyway, https://gist.github.com/1875528. Enjoy.