Perl has many built in functions for file and directory handling and you should use them in preference to shelling out in your scripts because:

• They work across operating systems (at least as far as is practical)

• They are much more efficient as there's no extra processes being started and stopped all the time.

I've added a source code sample to our web site which shows some of these in use ...

cwd to find out where you are
chdir to change your current directory
-d to check is a symbol is a directory
opendir and readdir to read through a directory's content

Sample output:

earth-wind-and-fire:~ grahamellis$ perl chdirddemo
We are in /Users/grahamellis
We are now in /Users/grahamellis/jun07
Directory entry count: 24
We are now in /Users/grahamellis
Directory entry count: 390
earth-wind-and-fire:~ grahamellis$
(written 2007-06-09, updated 2007-06-12)

 P215 - Perl - More about Files
  [3412] Handling binary data in Perl is easy! - (2011-08-30)
  [3320] Reading the nth line from a file (Perl and Tcl examples) - (2011-06-09)
  [2964] An introduction to file handling in programs - buffering, standard in and out, and file handles - (2010-09-21)
  [2405] But I am reading from a file - no need to prompt (Perl) - (2009-09-14)
  [1832] Processing all files in a directory - Perl - (2008-10-11)
  [1709] There is more that one way - Perl - (2008-07-14)

P602 - Perl - Advanced File and Directory Handling
  [3429] Searching through all the files in or below a directory - Ruby, Tcl, Perl - (2011-09-09)
  [2876] Different perl examples - some corners I rarely explore - (2010-07-18)
  [1861] Reactive (dynamic) formatting in Perl - (2008-10-31)
  [975] Answering ALL the delegate's Perl questions - (2006-12-09)
  [839] Reporting on the 10 largest files or 10 top scores - (2006-08-20)

Back to Object Relation Mapping (ORM)

Previous and next or Horse's mouth home

Forward to Melksham Art Cafe

Where am I?
Some progress on the train campaign
Melksham businesses - networking together
Melksham Art Cafe
Perl - functions for directory handling
Object Relation Mapping (ORM)
Asda opening large new store in Melksham
Perl, the substitute operator s
Bathtubs and pecking birds
for loop - how it works (Perl, PHP, Java, C, etc)