CODEWITHSUNDEEP
perlgrep
norbdum
norbdum

Reputation: 2491

Perl : opening and reading directory & using grep to filter results

I am trying to remove the files older than x days and got to this page on perlmonks Find files older than x days and delete them. Following is the code to do the same (which i understand removes files from the DIR that are older than 14 days):

#! /usr/local/bin/perl
my $path = '../some/hardcoded/dir/here';
die unless chdir $path;
die unless opendir DIR, ".";
foreach $file (grep {-f && (14 < -M)} readdir DIR) {
        print $file;
        #unlink $file;
}
closedir DIR;

But i did not want to change the directory (chdir) hence changed the code as below but it is not printing file names

die unless opendir DIR, $path;
foreach $file (grep {-f && (14 < -M)} readdir DIR) {
       print $file;
       #unlink $file;
}
closedir DIR;

even though this is printing the files correctly.

die unless opendir DIR, $path;
foreach $file (readdir DIR) {
       print $file;
       #unlink $file;
}
closedir DIR;

I tried to search the answer but couldn't frame the question clearly. Please explain how to use grep and get the present directory files without changing directory(chdir).

Edit: Output of print Dumper map [$_, -f, -M], readdir DIR;

$VAR1 = [
          'PRTS_5_Thu_May_8_11-47-19_2014.pdf',
          undef,
          undef
        ];
$VAR2 = [
          '.',
          '',
          '0.0891203703703704'
        ];
$VAR3 = [
          'PRTS_49_Thu_May_8_12-31-11_2014.pdf',
          undef,
          undef
        ];
$VAR4 = [
          'PRTS_34_Thu_May_8_12-27-03_2014.pdf',
          undef,
          undef
        ];
$VAR5 = [
          '..',
          '',
          '9.02722222222222'
        ];

Edit 2: When i change the $path from '../some/hardcoded/dir/here' to '.'. I am getting the files correctly.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1977

Answers (1)

user1126070
user1126070

Reputation: 5069

You could change the date of a linux file using touch (for testing). I think your problem is that readdir returns only the filename and not the full path for the file.

You could test a code this way (longer but easier to understand):

#! /usr/local/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $dir = "/some/hardcoded/dir/here";
die unless opendir DIR, $dir;
foreach my $file (readdir DIR) {
   next if $file eq '.' or $file eq '..';
   $file = $dir.'/'.$file;
   print "found $file, mtime: ".(-M $file)."\n";
   if (-f $file && (14 < -M)){
     print "unlinking $file\n";
   }
}
closedir DIR;

Upvotes: 2

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