in reply to I humbly ask for your help with parsing

I think File::Spec's catdir(), splitdir(), catpath(), and splitpath() functions may be what you are looking for. You may use splitpath() to break the name apart, splitdir() to break the directory into a list, push() the desired directory name onto the end, then catdir() to reassemble the directory path, then catpath() to build the full name.

Hope that helps.

  • Comment on Re: I humbly ask for your help with parsing

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Re^2: I humbly ask for your help with parsing
by marinersk (Priest) on Oct 30, 2013 at 22:42 UTC
    ++ atcroft -- File::Specdoes the job: 

    #!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use File::Spec;

{
    my $pathName = "/usr/tmp/booger/test.dat";
    my $baseName = ExtractLastDir($pathName);
    print "Result is $baseName\n";
}

exit;


sub ExtractLastDir
{
    my ($fullName, @extraStuff) = @_;
    if (!defined $fullName) { $fullName = ''; }

    my ($volumeName, $directoryPath, $fileName) = File::Spec->splitpat
+h($fullName);
    my @directoryNames = File::Spec->splitdir($directoryPath);

    # Grab the last element from the directory -- but it is probably b
+lank
    my $lastDirectory = pop @directoryNames;

    # So if it is blank, get the next one
    if ($lastDirectory eq '')
    {
        $lastDirectory = pop @directoryNames;
    }

    return $lastDirectory;
}

__END__

C:\Steve\Dev\PerlMonks\P-2013-10-30@1354-BaseDir>basedir3.pl
Result is booger

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