Listing 3: The code for run_test() and its helpers random_string() and escape()

sub run_test {
    my $doit = shift;
    for (1..$TIMES) {
 	sleep(rand $DELAY) if $DELAY;

	# create a string of random stuff
	my $garbage = random_string(rand $MAXLEN) if $MAXLEN > 0;
	$garbage    = escape($garbage) unless $RAW;

	my @parameters;
      CASE: {
	  if (length($garbage) == 0) {
	      @parameters = ($URL);
	      last CASE;
	  }
      
	  if ($POST) {
	      @parameters = ($URL,$garbage);
	      last CASE;
	  }

	  if ($PATH) {
	      chop($url) if substr($url,-1,1) eq '/';
	      @parameters = ("$URL/$garbage");
	      last CASE;
	  }
      
	  @parameters = ("$URL?$garbage");
      }
    
	my ($status,$message,$contents);
    
	my $start = time();

	($status,$message,$contents) = fetch(@parameters) if     $doit;
	($status,$message,$contents) = (200,'','')        unless $doit;

	my $elapsed = time() - $start;
	my $bytes = length($garbage) + length($contents);

	warn "$$: ",$message,"\n" if $status >= 500;
	print join("\t",$$,$elapsed,$bytes,$status),"\n";
    }
}

# return some random data of the requested length
sub random_string {
    my $length = shift;
    my $string = ' ' x $length;
    for (my $i=0;$i<$length;$i++) {substr($string,$i,1) = chr(rand(255)); }
    return $string;
}

# replacement for URI::escape
sub escape {
    my $s = shift;
    $s =~ s/([^;\/?:@&=+\$,A-Za-z0-9\-_.!~*\'()])/$ESCAPES{$1}/g;
    return $s;
}