Re: Re: File::Dependencies - a new module looking for a good name (and more discussion)

I agree that File::Dependencies maybe misleading. File::Modified, File::Changed, File::Updated all sound much more accurate to me.

The suggestion to add Save/Load methods is something I would serously consider. That and a method to tell the time between updates would make this module much more flexible.

Cheers,
-Dogma

Comment on Re: Re: File::Dependencies - a new module looking for a good name (and more discussion)

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Re: Re: Re: File::Dependencies - a new module looking for a good name (and more discussion) by Corion (Patriarch) on Apr 17, 2002 at 06:15 UTC
Storing the file signatures should be easy to add, as I will most likely add a stringification routine to the `File::Signature` class; retrieving the signatures from a file would then mean parsing the file back in - something which would get nasty with weird filenames - here, either a small DBMS or a tied DB would be necessary to store the data, not nice, but feasible. Getting the difference between two signatures does not always have a meaning, for example the difference between two MD5 checksums. I could add the method to always store the timestamps, but timestamps are not always something you want to rely on - I'm thinking about NFS mounts with jumping clock times. A method to tell the time since the last update to the file-database is a responsibility of the main program and not of the module. `perl -MHTTP::Daemon -MHTTP::Response -MLWP::Simple -e ' ; # The $d = new HTTP::Daemon and fork and getprint $d->url and exit;#spider ($c = $d->accept())->get_request(); $c->send_response( new #in the HTTP::Response(200,$_,$_,qq(Just another Perl hacker\n))); ' # web` [download]	[reply] [d/l]

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Re: Re: Re: File::Dependencies - a new module looking for a good name (and more discussion)
by Corion (Patriarch) on Apr 17, 2002 at 06:15 UTC

Storing the file signatures should be easy to add, as I will most likely add a stringification routine to the File::Signature class; retrieving the signatures from a file would then mean parsing the file back in - something which would get nasty with weird filenames - here, either a small DBMS or a tied DB would be necessary to store the data, not nice, but feasible.

Getting the difference between two signatures does not always have a meaning, for example the difference between two MD5 checksums. I could add the method to always store the timestamps, but timestamps are not always something you want to rely on - I'm thinking about NFS mounts with jumping clock times. A method to tell the time since the last update to the file-database is a responsibility of the main program and not of the module.

perl -MHTTP::Daemon -MHTTP::Response -MLWP::Simple -e ' ;    # The  
$d = new HTTP::Daemon and fork and getprint $d->url and exit;#spider
($c = $d->accept())->get_request(); $c->send_response( new   #in the
HTTP::Response(200,$_,$_,qq(Just another Perl hacker\n))); ' #  web
[download]

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