The problem is that the file is always "complete". It's just that it may be more "complete" a moment later. So if you seek to the end, and then check for EOF as you suggest, it'll probably return true. It won't if the file has actually grown in between the seek and the test, but you may be testing too quickly. As the others suggest, you could include some delay, but there's the risk that the delay won't be enough.

However, if that's your decision... rather than than actually opening the files and making some decision base on the content, why not just look at the timestamp on the files, and consider them complete if they're old enough?

time-(stat $file)[9]
[download]

A better option, if you're on a UN*X system would be to use fuser on the file:

system "fuser -s $file"; 
print $?>>8?"complete":"still open";
[download]

--
Tommy
Too stupid to live.
Too stubborn to die.

On unix, you may have the lsof utility available.

Update: Also see flock

After Compline,
Zaxo

If you are incontrol of the upload process, there is a quick and easy way that I'd do it. NOTE: This is not tested, only a theory. There is an old way of doing things in C called flags. Since you are in control of the copying,

1. set a flag that references a file that is going to be uploaded.
2. Start the copy
3. unset the flag .5 seconds after the copy returns successful.
   • If unsuccessful, do your own error checking thing

OR

Do a md5sum on both files every few seconds until the sums match. The md5sum is much much slower.

Just a thought

Kristofer

Assuming that you have no control over the agent who is copying the file into the directory, one approach is to monitor the file size, and consider the transfer to be complete after some fixed amount of time.

Your users could save the files as "filename.PART", and then rename the files to just "filename" when they are ready.

This is the method used by most download managers.

Thanks for all the replies. Currently end-user will copy files from Macintosh to a directory in Win2K, which is mounted by Linux using Samba. Under such circumstances, does it mean I have to choose a time range to determine if it is whole file? Does it mean there's no alternatives for this?