MS Windows directories with spaces create "glob" errors

[SparceMatrix]

MS Windows directories with spaces create "glob" errors

I am have my introduction to PERL programming in Windows with ActiveState.

So far, I have been able to make use of folder handling with the Win32::OLE WScript object functionality. I needed help with this which I got here:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1203298&page=1

I am trying to move away from OLE and start applying PERL more directory, but an example provided me there is proving to be a problem and white spaces in the directories is certainly the source of the problem. I saw an offered solution here: thread219-740789 , but it doesn't seem to work for me. I suspect that the function "glob" is the source of the problem because if I look to print the variable $dir, the directory name looks like the white spaces are preserved as suggested in the previous thread.

This works, it provides a list of test files in C:/TEST:

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


my $dir = 'C:/TEST';

my $txt = 'output.txt';

my @files = glob("$dir/*.*");

open ( my $fh_output, '>', $txt) or die $!;

foreach my $file ( @files ) {

	print $fh_output $file , "\n"
}

close ( $fh_output );

If I substitute "my $dir = 'C:/TEST';" with "my $dir = 'C:/My Directory/My Other Directory'", I just get a list of the mangled and arrayed directory name:

C:/My
Directory/My
Other
Directory

What should I do to protect my white space directories from MS Windows. I think I understand that white spaces are not allowed in Unix/Linux. Can I create a strategy where this ceases to be a problem no matter where I go in PERL? The first time I tried PERL, this was a problem and I need to fix this if I am to go any farther.

 

[Xaqte]

Instead of glob, try readdir:

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


my $dir = 'C:/Documents and Settings/';
my $txt = 'output.txt';
opendir(DIR, $dir) || die "can't opendir $dir: $!";

my @files = readdir(DIR);

open ( my $fh_output, '>', $txt) or die $!;

foreach my $file ( @files ) {

    print $fh_output $file , "\n"
}
closedir DIR;
close ( $fh_output );

It should work for the code in your other post.

Although, I bet you next question is on how to get rid of the dots : )

Let us know how it goes!

X

 

[SparceMatrix]

Yes, that works. Thanks! And a reference to "readdir" was very handy in my Pocket Reference. I do know what the dots are for, although I couldn't say what they are doing in this particular read. Since they are always there, why would readdir want to print them out? I tried "if (-s $file) { print $fh_output $file , "\n" };" instead of just "print" and things get a little strange. In my TestDirectory, there is only one .txt file it will read. It will not read the remaining files for some reason, no matter what file test I use, (-s is shown here). I don't see anything in their attributes to suggest it is a permissions problem. They have the same attributes as the file that is read (A shows under Attributes).

-e is sufficient to read the directories in some other directories I tried and I'll guess that's what you had in mind to get of the rid of the dots.

 

[Kirsle]

As for the dots:

. current directory
.. up a directory

(a lot of Perl programmers like to refer to local files with directories beginning with . like "./log.txt")