Clarifying code

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

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Clarifying code by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Aug 27, 2002 at 19:05 UTC
The join can be replaced by a less-noisy interpolating quote. If self-documentation is important, you may want a named constant for the mtime: `use constant MTIME => 9; my prettyFileTime = localtime( (stat "$dir/$file")[MTIME]);` [download] but I don't see much wrong with what you have. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Clarifying code by Thelonius (Priest) on Aug 27, 2002 at 19:44 UTC
You can also use File::stat `use File::stat; my $prettyFileTime = localtime( stat("$dir/$file")->mtime);` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Clarifying code by Kanji (Parson) on Aug 27, 2002 at 19:50 UTC
In a similar vein, you can use File::stat's by-name interface to the built-in stat... `use File::stat; my $prettyFileTime = localtime stat("$dir/$file")->mtime;` [download] --k. Update: D'oh...beaten to the punch...	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Clarifying code by FoxtrotUniform (Prior) on Aug 27, 2002 at 18:57 UTC
I'd break it out into a sub (note the error check): `sub pretty_time { my ($file) = @_; die "pretty_time: can't find $file\n" unless -e $file; my $time = (stat($file))[9]; return scalar localtime $time; } ... my $pretty_file_time = &pretty_time(join('/', $dir, $file));` [download] `-- F o x t r o t U n i f o r m Found a typo in this node? /msg me The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Clarifying code by charnos (Friar) on Aug 27, 2002 at 19:06 UTC
I don't know about being prettier, but instead of join(), you could just concatenate them using the dot operator. `my $prettyFileTime = localtime((stat($dir.'/'.$file)))[9]);` [download] Which is how I'd write it. That only eliminates one function, which doesn't necessarily make it clearer, but a little more concise, none the less. You also might want to try breaking it up and calling stat() only if `$dir.'/'.$file` exists, else do something different.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Clarifying code by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Aug 27, 2002 at 21:55 UTC
`use File::Spec::Functions; use File::stat; my $pretty_file_time = localtime stat(catfile $dir, $file)->mtime;` [download] Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply] [d/l]