I am busy implementing a lab for pen testers to create MD5 hashes from 4 letter words. I need the words to have a combination of lower and uppercase letters as well as numeric and special characters, but I just do not seem to find out how to combine any given characters in all orders. So currently I have this:
my $str = 'aaaa';
print $str++, $/ while $str le 'dddd';
Which will do:
aaaa
aaab
aaac
aaad
...
...
dddd
There is no way however how I can make it do:
Aaaa
AAaa
aAaa
...
dddD
Not even to mention adding numbers and special characters. What I really wanted to do was to make the characters to create words based on a given list. So if I feel I want to use abeDod## it should create all combinations from those characters.
Edit to clarify.
Let's say I give the characters aBc# I need it to give it a a count to say it must have maximum of 4 letters per word and with combination of all the given characters, like:
aBc#
Bac#
caB#
#Bca
...
I hope that clarifies the question.
Use a list of integers that are ASCII codes for the characters you accept, to sample from it using your favorite (pseudo-)random number generator. Then convert each to its character using chr and concatenate them.
Like
perl -wE'$rw .= chr( 32+(int rand 126-32) ) for 1..4; say $rw'
Notes
I use a one-liner merely for easy copy-paste testing. Write this nicely in a script, please
I use the sketchy rand, good for shuffling things a bit. Replace with a better one if needed
Glueing four (pseudo-)random numbers does not build a good distribution; even as each letter on its own does, the whole thing does not. But the four should satisfy most needs.
If not, I think that you'd need to produce a far longer list (range of allowed chars repeated four times perhaps) and randomize it, then draw four-letter subsequences. A lot more work
I need to tap dance a little to produce (random-ish) integers from 32 to 126 using rand, since it takes only the end of range. Also, this takes all of them from that range, likely not what you want; so specify subranges, or specific lists that you want to draw from
So, I happened to notice that last.fm is hiring in my area, and since I've known a few people who worked there, I though of applying.
But I thought I'd better take a look at the current staff first.
Everyone on that page has a cute/clever/dumb strapline, like "Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?". In fact, it was quite amusing, until I got to this:
perl -e'print+pack+q,c*,,map$.+=$_,74,43,-2,1,-84, 65,13,1,5,-12,-3, 13,-82,44,21, 18,1,-70,56, 7,-77,72,-7,2, 8,-6,13,-70,-34'
Which I couldn't resist pasting into my terminal (kind of a stupid thing to do, maybe), but it printed:
Just another Last.fm hacker,
I thought it would be relatively easy to figure out how that Perl one-liner works. But I couldn't really make sense of the documentation, and I don't know Perl, so I wasn't even sure I was reading the relevant documentation.
So I tried modifying the numbers, which got me nowhere. So I decided it was genuinely interesting and worth figuring out.
So, 'how does it work' being a bit vague, my question is mainly,
What are those numbers? Why are there negative numbers and positive numbers, and does the negativity or positivity matter?
What does the combination of operators +=$_ do?
What's pack+q,c*,, doing?
This is a variant on “Just another Perl hacker”, a Perl meme. As JAPHs go, this one is relatively tame.
The first thing you need to do is figure out how to parse the perl program. It lacks parentheses around function calls and uses the + and quote-like operators in interesting ways. The original program is this:
print+pack+q,c*,,map$.+=$_,74,43,-2,1,-84, 65,13,1,5,-12,-3, 13,-82,44,21, 18,1,-70,56, 7,-77,72,-7,2, 8,-6,13,-70,-34
pack is a function, whereas print and map are list operators. Either way, a function or non-nullary operator name immediately followed by a plus sign can't be using + as a binary operator, so both + signs at the beginning are unary operators. This oddity is described in the manual.
If we add parentheses, use the block syntax for map, and add a bit of whitespace, we get:
print(+pack(+q,c*,,
map{$.+=$_} (74,43,-2,1,-84, 65,13,1,5,-12,-3, 13,-82,44,21,
18,1,-70,56, 7,-77,72,-7,2, 8,-6,13,-70,-34)))
The next tricky bit is that q here is the q quote-like operator. It's more commonly written with single quotes:
print(+pack(+'c*',
map{$.+=$_} (74,43,-2,1,-84, 65,13,1,5,-12,-3, 13,-82,44,21,
18,1,-70,56, 7,-77,72,-7,2, 8,-6,13,-70,-34)))
Remember that the unary plus is a no-op (apart from forcing a scalar context), so things should now be looking more familiar. This is a call to the pack function, with a format of c*, meaning “any number of characters, specified by their number in the current character set”. An alternate way to write this is
print(join("", map {chr($.+=$_)} (74, …, -34)))
The map function applies the supplied block to the elements of the argument list in order. For each element, $_ is set to the element value, and the result of the map call is the list of values returned by executing the block on the successive elements. A longer way to write this program would be
#list_accumulator = ();
for $n in (74, …, -34) {
$. += $n;
push #list_accumulator, chr($.)
}
print(join("", #list_accumulator))
The $. variable contains a running total of the numbers. The numbers are chosen so that the running total is the ASCII codes of the characters the author wants to print: 74=J, 74+43=117=u, 74+43-2=115=s, etc. They are negative or positive depending on whether each character is before or after the previous one in ASCII order.
For your next task, explain this JAPH (produced by EyesDrop).
''=~('(?{'.('-)#.)#_*([]#!#/)(#)#-#),#(##+#)'
^'][)#]`}`]()`#.#]#%[`}%[#`#!##%[').',"})')
Don't use any of this in production code.
The basic idea behind this is quite simple. You have an array containing the ASCII values of the characters. To make things a little bit more complicated you don't use absolute values, but relative ones except for the first one. So the idea is to add the specific value to the previous one, for example:
74 -> J
74 + 43 -> u
74 + 42 + (-2 ) -> s
Even though $. is a special variable in Perl it does not mean anything special in this case. It is just used to save the previous value and add the current element:
map($.+=$_, ARRAY)
Basically it means add the current list element ($_) to the variable $.. This will return a new array with the correct ASCII values for the new sentence.
The q function in Perl is used for single quoted, literal strings. E.g. you can use something like
q/Literal $1 String/
q!Another literal String!
q,Third literal string,
This means that pack+q,c*,, is basically pack 'c*', ARRAY. The c* modifier in pack interprets the value as characters. For example, it will use the value and interpret it as a character.
It basically boils down to this:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my $prev_value = 0;
my #relative = (74,43,-2,1,-84, 65,13,1,5,-12,-3, 13,-82,44,21, 18,1,-70,56, 7,-77,72,-7,2, 8,-6,13,-70,-34);
my #absolute = map($prev_value += $_, #relative);
print pack("c*", #absolute);
Guys perl is not as easy i thought its so confusing thing.I just moved to operators and I wrote some codes but I am unable to figure it out how the compiler treating them.
$in = "42" ;
$out = "56"+32+"good";
print $out,;
The output for above code is 88 and where does the good gone? and Now lets see the other one.
$in ="42";
$out="good52"+32;
print $out ;
and for these the output is 32. The question is where does the good gone that we just stored in $out and the value 52 between the " "why the compiler just printing the value as 32 but not that remaining text.And the other question is
$in=52;
$in="52";
both doing the same work "52" not working as a text . becuase when we add "52"+32 it gives as 84. what is happening and
$in = "hello";
$in = hello;
both do the same work ? or do they differ but if i print then give the same output.Its just eating up my brain.Its so confusing becuase when "52" or 52 and "hello" or hello doing the same job why did they introduce " ".I just need the explaination why its happening for above codes.
In Perl, + is a numeric operator. It tries to interpret its two operands as numbers. 51 is the number 51. "51" is a string containing two digits, and the + operator tries to convert the string to a number, which is 51, and uses it in the calculation. "hello" is a string containing five letters, and when the + operator tries to interpret that as a number, it equates to 0 (zero).
Your first example is thus:
$out = "56"+32+"good";
which is evaluates just like:
$out = 56 + 32 + 0;
Your print then converts that to a string on output, and yields 88.
In perl, the + operator will treat its arguments as numbers, and try to convert anything that is not a number to a number. The . (dot) operator is used to join strings: it will try to convert its operands to strings if they aren't already strings.
If you put:
use strict;
use warnings;
At the top of your script, you would get warnings such as:
Argument "good" isn't numeric in addition (+) at ...
Argument "good52" isn't numeric in addition (+) at ...
Perl automatically reassigns a string value to numeric, if possible. So "42" + 10 actually becomes 52. But it cannot do that with a proper string value, such as "good".
In perl, a string in a numerical context (like when you use a + operator) is converted to a number.
In perl, you can concatenate string using the . (dot) operator, not +.
If you use +, perl will try and interpret all of the operands as numbers. This works well for strings that are number representations, otherwise you get 0. This explains what you see.
$in=52;
$in="52";
both doing the same work "52" not working as a text . becuase when we add "52"+32 it gives as 84.
The problem here is not with the variable definition. One is a string and the other a number. But when you use the string in a numerical expression (+), then it will converted to number.
About your second question:
$in = "hello" defines a string, as you expect;
$in = hello; will just copy the symbol hello (however it is defined) on to your variable. This is actually not "strict" perl and if you set use strict; in your file, perl will complain about it.
First off, give this a read.
Your problem is that the + is a mathematical addition, which doesn't work on strings. If you use that, Perl will assume that you're working with numbers and therefore discard anything that isn't.
To concatenate strings, use .:
$str = "blah " . "blah " . "blah";
As far as the difference between "52" and 52 goes, there isn't one. Since nothing (commands, comments, etc.) in Perl can start with numbers, the compiler doesn't need the quotes to know what to do.
I need to buff out a line of text with a varying but large number of whitespace. I can figure out a janky way of doing a loop and adding whitespace to $foo, then splicing that into the text, but it is not an elegant solution.
I need a little more info. Are you just appending to some text or do you need to insert it?
Either way, one easy way to get repetition is perl's 'x' operator, eg.
" " x 20000
will give you 20K spaces.
If have an existing string ($s say) and you want to pad it out to 20K, try
$s .= (" " x (20000 - length($s)))
BTW, Perl has an extensive set of operators - well worth studying if you're serious about the language.
UPDATE: The question as originally asked (it has since been edited) asked about 20K spaces, not a "lot of whitespace", hence the 20K in my answer.
If you always want the string to be a certain length you can use sprintf:
For example, to pad out $var with white space so it 20,000 characters long use:
$var = sprintf("%-20000s",$var);
use the 'x' operator:
print ' ' x 20000;