Gossamer Forum: General: Perl Programming: Attributes of an entry in a Directory

Oct 11, 2002, 5:00 AM

silvermist

Novice (6 posts)

Oct 11, 2002, 5:00 AM

Post #1 of 6

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Attributes of an entry in a Directory

readdir() returns a string which is either a directory name or a file name. How can I detect the type of entry?
Douglas Maughan
Winchester, UK

Oct 11, 2002, 5:26 AM

Andy

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Oct 11, 2002, 5:26 AM

Post #2 of 6

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Re: [silvermist] Attributes of an entry in a Directory In reply to

Not sure....PHP offers a cool function called is_dir(), but I don't know about Perl. The way I would do it is;

if ($file =~ /\./) {
# got a . in it, so assuming its a file...
} else {
# here we assume its a directory...
}

Hope that helps Smile

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Oct 11, 2002, 6:55 AM

Chaz

Enthusiast (819 posts)

Oct 11, 2002, 6:55 AM

Post #3 of 6

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Re: [silvermist] Attributes of an entry in a Directory In reply to

I think -d would do the trick here:

Code:
my $is_dir = -d $filename; 

if ($is_dir) { 
  # It's a dir 
} 
else { 
  # It's not a dir 
}

Regards,
Charlie

Oct 11, 2002, 6:56 AM

Paul

Veteran (19537 posts)

Oct 11, 2002, 6:56 AM

Post #4 of 6

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Re: [Andy] Attributes of an entry in a Directory In reply to

You can't say "if it has got a dot in the name it is a file" ......that is very unreliable.

Most operating systems have "dotless" files and likewise directories with dots in the names.

You need to use the following:

http://gossamer-threads.com/...e%20writable;#200798

stat() gives further details:

http://www.perldoc.com/...1/pod/func/stat.html

Oct 11, 2002, 6:59 AM

Andy

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Oct 11, 2002, 6:59 AM

Post #5 of 6

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Re: [Paul] Attributes of an entry in a Directory In reply to

AS I said Paul..it was an idea...not a very good one, but a starting point!

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Oct 11, 2002, 7:08 AM

Paul

Veteran (19537 posts)

Oct 11, 2002, 7:08 AM

Post #6 of 6

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Re: [Andy] Attributes of an entry in a Directory In reply to

That's right and I was pointing out a more reliable solution as Charlie did (except Charlie beat me) Tongue