How do I use stat

bgator29 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi, I am having a terrible time with the stat function. I am trying to add code to a current program to where it will print out an error message if the last file read is older than 20 minutes. I am trying to get it in seconds so (1200 seconds). I have been to CPAN and looked at stat, but I guess I'm not following it correctly. Here is what I have:

my @array = ($dev, $ino, $mode, $nlink, $uid, $gid, $rdev, $size, $ati
+me, $mtime, $ctime, $blksize, $block);
@array = stat($_);
$array = @array[8];
if($array > 1200){
print "ERROR MESSAGE";}
[download]

ANY HELP is greatly appreciated...........THank YOu!

Edit by tye

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Re: How do I use stat by ducky (Scribe) on Sep 27, 2001 at 20:52 UTC
Try <code> and </code> tags =) Close. stat's time functions give you the times since the epoch so you need to figure out how many seconds it's been. You should be able to get away with this: `if ( time - (stat $_)[9] > 1200 ) { print "ERROR MESSAGE" }` [download] This gets rid of the variables I'm guessing you're not using, as well. Let me know if that works for ya. =) -Ducky	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: How do I use stat by bgator29 (Initiate) on Sep 27, 2001 at 22:43 UTC
thanks for the tips. I'm new to PERL ( you could probably tell). That really got me off to a great start.........one more question though please. Aside from the code that you gave me, do I have to have anything else because i think that the `(stat $_)` is not actually working. Do I need to have any code before i make the if comparison?? Hopefully that makes sense Thanks a lot	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Re: How do I use stat by ducky (Scribe) on Sep 28, 2001 at 00:05 UTC
No problem! That is exactly why we're here =) One thing to consider when doing `stat` is that it operates off of the current working directory. Perhaps $_ isn't really pointing to a valid file? Proper error checking is very good practice and often needs very little extra modification: `die "Bigger problem: '$_' doesn't exist!" if not -e $_ ; if ( time - (stat $_)[9] > 1200 ) { print "ERROR MESSAGE" }` [download] Oh, and no, `stat` works just fine by its lonesome. No prep is needed. -Ducky	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: How do I use stat by jeroenes (Priest) on Sep 27, 2001 at 20:55 UTC
`die "Argghh" if -M $_ > 1/24/3;` If $_ holds the name of the file you want to check. Look at perlfunc for -M, it gives you the change time in days. See also $ARGV in perlvar.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I use stat by tommyw (Hermit) on Sep 27, 2001 at 20:51 UTC
The time fields are absolute times (so, for example, they represent 12:03 today). You need to compare them to the current time, available (amazingly) from the `time` function.	[reply] [d/l]