Searching For a File

[mtorbin]

Hey all,

Ok, I promise I'll post whatever code I finish since you all helped me write it. The piece that I'm now working on is this:

I need to have a perl script search a very specific directory for a file and return whether or not it finds it.

Well, where do I begin?

- MT

Matt Torbin
Web and Graphic Arts Engineer
PEI-Genesis

http://www.peigenesis.com

aim: dgtlby
direct email: mtorbin_at_earthlink.net

 

[mtorbin]

OK, here's my meager attempt to fix the problem. The reason it wasn't finding it was because it was looking for the directory PLUS the file. So, I tried this but it didn't work:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
print "Content-type:text/html\n\n";

my $directory = '/var/

http://www/cgi-bin/tester/members';

my $my_file = 'mtorbin.dat';
my $wholeVAR = $directory+"/"+$my_file;

foreach my $file (glob "$directory/*") {

print "$file\n";

if ($file eq $wholeVAR) {
print "I found it";
}

else {
next;
}

}

print "OK, nothing happened. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?";

What did I miss?

- MT

Matt Torbin
Web and Graphic Arts Engineer
PEI-Genesis

http://www.peigenesis.com

aim: dgtlby
direct email: mtorbin_at_earthlink.net

 

[Rieekan]

Sorry, that's just a habit of mine. In all of my scripts I use a module called strict. It mandates that variables created in one block are not the same in another block of code. That way, I can use $file all over my code and not worry if I need to undefine it first.

If you don't use the strict module, then you don't have to worry about this, however, I suggest using it as it makes your code a lot cleaner.

- Rieekan

 

[PaulTEG]

$myfile=mtorbin.dat;
opendir DIR "/where/ever";
@files=readdir DIR;
closedir DIR;
foreach (@files) {
  if (lc($_)) eq lc($myfile)) {
    print "Found it";
  }
}

In Perl there is always more than one way to do it

--Paul

 

[mtorbin]

OK, I just modified my code to try what Paul had posted and I got an error. Here is the code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
print "Content-type:text/html\n\n";

$myfile=mtorbin.dat;
opendir DIR "/var/

http://www/cgi-bin/tester/members";

@files=readdir DIR;
closedir DIR;

foreach (@files) {
if (lc($_)) eq lc($myfile)) {
print "Found it";
}
}

I'm still waking up this morning, so if I missed something obvious, I'm sorry about that. The last part of this that I want to add is that if the file is found go to, for the sake of arguing, pageA.html. If the the file is not found, go to pageB.html.

Thanks for the help.

- MT

Matt Torbin
Web and Graphic Arts Engineer
PEI-Genesis

http://www.peigenesis.com

aim: dgtlby
direct email: mtorbin_at_earthlink.net

 

[PaulTEG]

Matt,

what was the error? that'd help

--Paul

 

[mtorbin]

LOl... I guess it would. Sorry about that. I was getting a 500 error which could be anything. Unfortunately, I don't have access to my error logs right now so I have to do this blindly.

- MT

Matt Torbin
Web and Graphic Arts Engineer
PEI-Genesis

http://www.peigenesis.com

aim: dgtlby
direct email: mtorbin_at_earthlink.net

 

[PaulTEG]

put this line in your code at the top.

It's not faultless, but it might help

use CGI::Carp (fatalsToBrowser);

BTW, why the Taint flag?
-wT might be an idea to get the script running before putting in the T flag
--Paul

 

[spydermonkey]

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

use CGI qw/:standard/;

print header, start_html("title");

my $directory = "/abs/olute/path/"; # or whatever

my $filename = "image.gif"; # or whatever

if (-e $directory$filename) # or is it -f?
{
# do this
}

print end_html;
exit;

 

[PaulTEG]

That would do it also
--Paul

 

[mtorbin]

Thanks all...

I've found that -wT makes a lot of my scripts run smoother. I don't know why, but it just seems to work.

- MT

Matt Torbin
Web and Graphic Arts Engineer
PEI-Genesis

http://www.peigenesis.com

aim: dgtlby
direct email: mtorbin_at_earthlink.net

 

[mtorbin]

Ok... I gave SpyderMonkey's code a run and nothing... gave me an error 500. Wow, this is turning out to be much harder than I thought.

- MT

Matt Torbin
Web and Graphic Arts Engineer
PEI-Genesis

http://www.peigenesis.com

aim: dgtlby
direct email: mtorbin_at_earthlink.net

 

[PaulTEG]

Did you try the CGI::Carp (fatalsToBrowser); line?
That might give you more information on the error, if you don't have access to the logs.

BTW-What web host are you with if you don't have access to your logs?

--Paul

 

[mtorbin]

OK, I'm going to try and contain some of this because it seems to have taken a life of its own.

First, Paul's Question: - OK, so you called my bluff. I ... um... forgot where they were and the sysAdmin wasn't here. But I got that fixed today.

[embarrassment fades...]

Second, I think we might have gotten off track here because I have three different solutions and I'm not sure which one will work the best for me. I think we need to combine them into one easy simple solution.

- MT

Matt Torbin
Web and Graphic Arts Engineer
PEI-Genesis

http://www.peigenesis.com

aim: dgtlby
direct email: mtorbin_at_earthlink.net

 

[PaulTEG]

Spyder's solution is best because you know the location, and name of the file.

Rieekan's solution and mine both require all the relevant files in the directory, so are overkill.Spyder's simply checks to see if the file exists ina given location.

Back to error messages, Matt, we're trying to help, but without a specific error message that's not going to be easy...

--Paul

 

[mtorbin]

Well, now that I know where those error logs are, that shouldn't be a problem.

- MT

Matt Torbin
Web and Graphic Arts Engineer
PEI-Genesis

http://www.peigenesis.com

aim: dgtlby
direct email: mtorbin_at_earthlink.net

 

[spydermonkey]

Wow, this was the first time I've been praised for an answer-- that's pretty awesome Thanks. I had to do this a number of times, just curious. Why is "unlink" the command to delete a file? I always wondered that because "delete "$file";" or "rem "$file"; seems to be a better choice of words.

 

[PaulTEG]

unlink comes from the Unix - it's probably got some really obscure relevance like most *nix commands

allegedly cat which is the *nix command to type a file was named after a developer's dog

It's a language, not english, after all

Praise where priase is due, Spyder, have a star

--Paul

It's important in life to always strike a happy medium, so if you see someone with a crystal ball, and a smile on their face ...