Win7 cannot MKDIR or write

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

Normally, I would run Apache / Perl (aka an offline development area) and have never had any probs. But now I am trying to create a 'standalone' that will work via PERL only.

First problem. The other day, I discovered that whilst I could read files, I couldn't write or append files using the 3 option version:

open my $fh, '>', 'path to windows folder';
write $fh 'This is a test';
close ($fh)
[download]

Today, moved onto read/write directories. Again, eventually, was able to read a directory ... but no way will it create one:

# $schoolName and $bar are set elsewhere, but basically 'AHS' and 'XYZ
+'
# hotBase is "D:/home/cristofa/public_html/'; 
  $pupilFolder=$schoolName.$bar;    # Create the pupil folder for late
+r offline use
    $dirPath=$hotBase.'pupils/'.$pupilFolder;
        if (-e $dirPath){
        print 'already made';
        }
        else{
    mkdir $dirPath,0777;
    print $dirPath;
    }
[download]

But here's an interesting aside. When I use the same path to create it again ... it tells me it already exists even though directory is empty, (even DIR shows an empty folder)

This is being executed from CMD, and the version is 5.20.xx (Ran into problems trying to update Strawberry Perl

On Windows, all users / admin have full rights (it's only me) Although on folder properties, the box beside folders is shown blue. I have unhighlighted that, it runs through all the files in folder ... then directory is STILL shown as Read Only, (but that appears to be same on every other folder on PC)

** Just had a thought. I wonder if my Comodo firewall is preventing files being written out

Comment on Win7 cannot MKDIR or write Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Win7 cannot MKDIR or write by dave_the_m (Monsignor) on Mar 05, 2019 at 13:37 UTC
I can't comment on any Windows-specific stuff, but I observe that in neither your file-open-for-writing code, nor in the directory-making code, do you check for errors. Any error messages might give a better clue what the issue is. `open my $fh, '>', 'path to windows folder' or die "Can't open 'path to windows folder': $!\n"; ... mkdir $dirPath,0777 or die "Can't make directory '$dirPath': $!\n";` [download] Dave.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Win7 cannot MKDIR or write by thechartist (Monk) on Mar 05, 2019 at 19:34 UTC
To put it simply, Windows permissions are complicated. The ACL model in Windows can often get in an inconsistent state. For example, you can give yourself read/write/execute permissions at the folder level, but this might not percolate downward to individual items in the directory, even if you click the appropriate box in the GUI. I had this happen when my profile got corrupted, and I needed to move files to a new account. You might need to write a Powershell script to change all of the files individually. Pretty annoying. Your best bet would be to read up on the built-in utilities called ICACLS. Link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/icacls Edit: the following goes into some of the issues regarding taking ownership of various objects on the Windows system: Link: https://rakhesh.com/powershell/using-get-acl-to-view-and-modify-access-control-lists-part-1/ Edit 2: Closest thing to a manpage for ICALS: Link:https://ss64.com/nt/icacls.html	[reply]