Shouldn't modify file or directory structure when in File::Find?

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

I was always told not to alter the files and directory structure when doing a File::Find. So I do a find pushing the results into a list then after the find is complete I perform my action on the files. Is this silly? The code structure that I use is as follows:

my @file_list;
my $file;
my $path = "/home/blm/url/";

find (\&wanted, $path);

foreach $file (@file_list) {
   ...
}

sub wanted{
   if (-f)
   {
       push @file_list, $_;

   }
}
[download]

Comment on Shouldn't modify file or directory structure when in File::Find? Download Code

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Re: Shouldn't modify file or directory structure when in File::Find? by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Sep 17, 2002 at 23:25 UTC
Your technique is fine, not silly at all. A list of files isn't that big a memory hog, and that procedure prevents bad interactions between `&wanted` and the processing you do. For instance, if your processing created backups in a yet unexamined directory, you would find yourself making backups of the backups, perhaps without end. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply]
Re: Shouldn't modify file or directory structure when in File::Find? by PodMaster (Abbot) on Sep 18, 2002 at 02:57 UTC
You might wanna use "postprocess", as in `find({ wanted =>\&wanted, postprocess => sub { unlink @file_list; }, }, $path );` [download] seeing how you're only dealing with files. `____________________________________________________` ** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.	[reply] [d/l]