File name search with regex

oldenuf2no has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a routine that searches a directory and it's sub directories for files that are older than five days. All is working great when I use my perl program on windows or UNIX Platforms. But now I need to have an additional check that the file also starts with the letter "L" or the word "Log". Any time I add this additional check in my sub routine no files are found at all, so I have something wrong. Here is what I have that works:

{
find (sub {my $filename = $File::Find::name;
 if ( -f $filename ) {
    my $filetime = (stat "$filename")[9];
    my ($sec, $min, $hour, $day, $month, $year) = (localtime($filetime
+))[0,1,2,3,4,5];
    if ($now - $fivedaystime > $filetime){
      my $mm = $month+1;
      my $yy = $year+1900;
      open (LOGFILE, '>>', $script_auditlog) or die "Could not open fi
+le '$script_auditlog' $!";
      print LOGFILE "$filename last modified on $mm\/$day\/$yy $hour\:
+$min\:$sec was removed.\n";
      push (@file_list, $filename);
      }     
    }
}, $pslog_directory);
close LOGFILE;
}
[download]

To accomplish what I need I was trying to do this:

 if ( -f $filename && $filename =~ /^Log*/ )
[download]

Or I tried this:

 if ( -f $filename && $filename =~ /^L/ )
[download]

The files in the directory that is searched look like this:

Log.txt.20151102
Log.txt.20151103
Fsvrcom1.trc
Fsvrcom2.trc
[download]

I need to leave the files that don't start with "L" alone. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Comment on File name search with regex Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: File name search with regex by NetWallah (Canon) on Dec 03, 2015 at 22:02 UTC
You are deriving $filename from $File::Find::name. From the docs, $File::Find::name is the complete pathname to the file. So , it includes the directory path, which presumably does not start with "L", and will never match /^L/. Use $_ inside the wanted function, to get just the file name. Our business is run on trust. We trust you will pay in advance.	[reply]
Re^2: File name search with regex by oldenuf2no (Initiate) on Dec 08, 2015 at 15:27 UTC
Thank you NetWallah. I was looking for what was wrong and you pointed that out. I am new to using perl and using regex. I changed the regex to /Log.txt/ and all was well. I appreciate the other ideas from yourself and the others of how else to try to accomplish what I was doing. I will look in to them as there is always time later for improvements, but for now I am able to carry on with what I have. Thank you very much for the help. -Joleen	[reply]
Re: File name search with regex by RichardK (Parson) on Dec 03, 2015 at 23:38 UTC
I find that File::Find::Rule is much easier to use than raw File::Find. So you could get just the files that you want to process something like this :- `my @logs = File::Find::Rule->file()->name('L*')->mtime("<=$five_days_a +go")->in($dir);` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: File name search with regex by stevieb (Canon) on Dec 04, 2015 at 00:11 UTC
Update: I misread the OP as NOT wanting `L\|Log` files (I'm leaving my OP below as-is/original). RichardK's response here is the better one. He also taught me about the `mtime` method, so at least I learned something :) /update Hi oldenuf2no, welcome to the PerlMonks Monastery! File::Find::Rule will help clean up your code, the `-M` flag can do the check, and throw in a tiny regex to bypass files that start with `L` or `Log` and you end up with this: `use warnings; use strict; use File::Find::Rule; my $dir = '.'; my @files = File::Find::Rule->file()->name('*')->in($dir); for (@files){ if (-M $_ > 5 && $_ !~ /^(?:L\|Log)/){ print "$_\n"; } }` [download] -stevieb	[reply] [d/l] [select]