Perl Usage error [closed] - perl

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Can anyone tell me why I'm getting this:
usage: gen-non-random.pl <count> <outputfile>
From the code below:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# Script to generate non random values, to demonstrate a bad randomness graph
# for my "Howto Analyse SessionIDs".
#
# written by:
$version = "0.0.4";
$filename = "gen-non-random.pl";
$usage = "usage: $filename <count> <outputfile>\n";
$count = $ARGV[0] or die ("$usage\n");
$output = $ARGV[1] or die ("$usage\n");
print ("-- $filename Version: $version\n");
use Time::HiRes qw( usleep ualarm gettimeofday tv_interval );
use Math::Random;
use Digest::MD5 qw(md5_hex);
open (OUT, ">$output") or die ("Can't open $output\n");
for ($i=0; $i<$count;$i++)
{
# generate a random number
$random = random_uniform();
# cut out char 3-9 of $random and put it in $randsub
$randsub = substr($random, 2, 6);
# get seconds and microseconds since epoch
($seconds, $microseconds) = gettimeofday;
# get the last two chars of the seconds and put them into $s
$s = substr($seconds, 8, 2);
# sleep for a while
usleep $randsub;
# put together the last two digits of seconds and the microseconds
$time = $s . $microseconds;
$md5_time=md5_hex($time);
# print out the stuff we put together above
print OUT ("$md5_time\n");
}
close (OUT) or die ("Can't close $output\n");
print ("$count values written to $output\n");
exit;
I am new to programming so i need really simple answer please! I do not own this code I am using for my research paper at University. Also, could someone please explain to me what Usage actually is i can't seem to find a good explanation for it?
Thanks.

Answer 1

You're getting that error because you're not using the program correctly:
usage: gen-non-random.pl <count> <outputfile>
This basically means you have to provide a count and output file as arguments, such as:
perl gen-non-random.pl 42 outfile.txt
This will generate forty-two numbers and output them to the outfile.txt file.
It's the two lines near the start, checking ARGV[0/1] and die-ing if you don't provide them, that are outputting this message and exiting the program.

Answer 2

Hmmm. I can't run the above code because Time::HiRes::ualarm() is not implemented on Windows. That said, it appears to be generating a MD5 has string of the current time (in integer form) after sleeping for a random number of seconds, then dumping the result into a text file. You are getting the usage message mentioned above because the program expects input. Try running it from the command line like so:
perl gen-non-random.pl 10 MyResults.txt
I suspect that will dump 10 HD5 hash results into a file called "MyResults.txt".