12  while ($dow != $target_dow) {   # do the following until $dow 
+is what we want
    13    # Back up one day
    14    $start -= $seconds_per_day;   # remove a days worth of secon
+ds from our epoch time
    15    if (--$dow < 0) {             # remove one from our $dow cou
+nter  
    16      $dow += 7;                  # if we ended up with -1 as da
+y of week, wrap it back to 6 (-1 + 7)
    17    }                             # end if
    18  }                               # end while loop, now our $dow
+ matches our target
[download]

Cheers,
R.

On line 11, $start is intialized to midnight of the current day. $start is expressed as a number of seconds from what is called the "epoch".

Now we have to "back up" from the current day's midnight to the previous Monday. If today was say Tuesday, then dow would be 2. while ($dow != $target_dow) would be while (2 != 1){}. A day's worth of seconds are subtracted from $start, $dow is decremented, loop stops.

if (--$dow < 0) { $dow += 7;} What happens if we were starting on Sunday, $dow of 0?. We have problems because current dow (0) is less than the Monday (1). We are one week off. We want to count: 6,5,4,3,2,1, winding up subtracting 6 full days of seconds, hence the reason to add 7.

There is more than one way to do this, but we are essentially "counting" in a circle, imagine a roulette wheel where the numbers around the circle are 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Wheel in the case only goes anti-clockwise. Hope that analogy works for you.

Once the proper Monday "start date" is figured out, then my $stop = $start + $seconds_per_day; adds one day of seconds to it.

Here is full code without line numbers (one subroutine was left out):

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use utf8;

use File::Find;
use Time::Local;

my $target_dow = 1;        # Sunday is 0, Monday is 1, ...
my @starting_directories = (".");

my $seconds_per_day = 24 * 60 * 60;
my($sec, $min, $hour, $day, $mon, $yr, $dow) = localtime;
my $start = timelocal(0, 0, 0, $day, $mon, $yr);        # midnight tod
+ay

while ($dow != $target_dow) {
  # Back up one day
  $start -= $seconds_per_day;        # hope no DST! :-)
  if (--$dow < 0) {
    $dow += 7;
  }
}
my $stop = $start + $seconds_per_day;

my($gather, $yield)  = gather_mtime_between($start, $stop);
find($gather, @starting_directories);
my @files = $yield->(  );

for my $file (@files) {
  my $mtime = (stat $file)[9];        # mtime via slice
  my $when = localtime $mtime;
  print "$when: $file\n";
}

sub gather_mtime_between{
   my ($begin, $end) = @_;
   my @files;
   my $gatherer = sub {
      my $timestamp = (stat $_)[9];
      unless (defined $timestamp){
         warn "Can't stat $File::Find::name $!, skipping\n";
         return;
      }
      push @files, $File::Find::name
         if $timestamp >= $begin and $timestamp <= $end;
   };
   my $fetcher = sub {@files };
   ($gatherer, $fetcher);
}
[download]

Can someone explain to me how would one come up with the idea behind the code from line 12 to 18? I mean I kind of understand it but I would have never though of it :-).

Its a very basic, its just counting , like for hide and seek, like turning the pages of a book, board games, summing up groceries, or subtracting from cash on hand ($20)...

Care to remove the line numbers for anybody interested in running the code? ;-{

Please follow the link for the original code without line numbers.