Question I just installed Twiki and it seems to be basically running. However some of the variables aren't evaluating. For example, I see the string % WIKIWEBLIST % where the list of Webs should be. Other variables that do not seem to be evaluated are WEBTOPICLIST, EDITBOXWIDTH, EDITBOXHEIGHT, among others. Any suggestions? .

-- RonDallas - 08 Dec 2000

Answer

It looks like TWiki can't find the preferences topics. Check your wikicfg.pm if the TWiki and Main webs are defined correctly, and if the TWikiPreferences and WebPreferences topics are defined correctly. (I'm happy now and don't think it is worth my effort to debug any further. (crossed out since it was not me who added this comment; I am spending way too many hours on TWiki if you ask my wife )

-- PeterThoeny - 09 Dec 2000

Followup

The problem seems to be related to the PERL I was using. I switched from a version 5.005_03 installation done by someone else to one that my group recently did of release v5.6.0. With only that change, the variables are now evaluating properly.

• TWiki works fine on both of these versions - it may have been something about the way that the 5.005_03 version was built - e.g. see Colas' comments below about non-threaded versions. -- RichardDonkin

-- RonDallas - 11 Dec 2000

Followup

Indeed, we had the same problem. That is, the evalutation of variables didn't work with Perl 5.0. Switching to Perl 5.6.1 solved this issue.

-- NicolaiJosuttis - 13 Apr 2001

Followup

I stubled on the same problem. A wiki working perfectly on a Apache/Solaris didnt expand preferences topics on another server with the same perl version, 5.005_03. I took me one day to realize that the non-working one was actually compiled with thread support and the working one didnt. Just copying the working perl on the other server solved the problem.

-- ColasNahaboo - 19 Apr 2001

Followup & further question

I've just had this on a test installation of Twiki (Dec 2000 release) using Perl 5.005_03 on Red Hat 6.2.

Old material deleted - was in fact a misconfiguration of TWiki, see below

-- RichardDonkin - 11 May 2001

At least in my case, this was nothing to do with the Perl version - TWiki works fine with Perl 5.005_03 and 5.6.1, both on Red Hat Linux 6.2. It was all because the %TWIKIWEB% variable was not defined in wikicfg.pm - this in turn was because I copied the whole wikicfg.pm file from a May2000 installation into the Dec2000 installation.... More details at VariablesNotEvaluating in Codev if you are interested.

-- RichardDonkin - 17 May 2001

Question I have recently installed Twiki on the following environment: --AIX 4.3.3, Apache web server, Perl 5.6.1. I am having problem with 'Variable Not Evaluating' for some of the variables on the top and bottom of the page as follows: --WIKIWEBLIST, HTTP_EQUIV_ON_VIEW, WEBTOPICLIST, WEBCOPYRIGHT. I have followed all the suggestions as indicated on this page so far for similar issues. -Have anybody successfully installed Twiki on AIX environment? -Are there any known bugs on AIX? -What are possible suggestions to resolve Variable Not Evaluating problem. Thanks. Omar. email: odewan01@sprintspectrumPLEASENOSPAM.com

-- TWikiGuest - 22 May 2001

Try to eliminate the eval() statement in bin/TWiki/Prefs.pm for latest Beta release (or bin/wikiprefs.pm for 01 Dec 2000 release). Changes are indicated in red color:

# =========================
sub handlePreferencesTags
{
    # modify argument directly, e.g. call by reference
    my $x; 
    my $term; 
    for( $x = 0; $x < @prefsKeys; $x++ ) { 
        $term = "\%$prefsKeys[$x]\%";
        $_[0] =~ s/$term/&prvHandlePrefsValue($x)/ge; 
    }

    if( $_[0] =~ /%VAR{(.*?)}%/ ) {
        # handle web specific variables
        $_[0] =~ s/%VAR{(.*?)}%/&prvHandleWebVariable($1)/geo;
    }
}

-- PeterThoeny - 22 May 2001

Before you try switching Perl version or changing the code, just make sure that the TWIKIWEB variable is set correctly, and that you have tried a wikicfg.pm file that is from the Dec 2000 release - see my comment above.

-- RichardDonkin - 23 May 2001

Follow Up I had the same problems discussed above. Using Red Hat 6.2 and perl 5.005_03. In short, I took the second of two choices. Instead of changing my configuration, I changed the version of TWiki I was using. I downloaded TWiki20001201.zip from thoeny.com and
BINGO!
everything works great. I have an older version, but I have a working version. If I find that I want to move forward with this platform, then I can worry about upgrading perl, or whatever is breaking between the December and the current version. Maybe by the time I'm ready to upgrade this problem will disappear.

-- DrewHawn - 19 November 2001

For users attempting to run TWiki on a Sun Unix box a bug exists in the Prefs.pm file, method getPrefsFromTopic. The regexp that parses the preferences files uses \t whereas it should be \s. I changed this and it now displays the variables correctly.

-- TWikiGuest - 04 Feb 2002

I do not recommend to change \t with a \s because you could have unwanted side effects. Three spaces are changed to a tab when you save a topic, so there seems to be a problem with your file format.

-- PeterThoeny - 10 Feb 2002