1234567890x.las
1234567890x1.las
1234567890x2.las
[download]

There are around 4,000 files already on a network drive. New files that are to be added, need to have their prospective names compared to the existing files and the optional number added or incremented to make sure nothing will be overwritten. The files are then moved to a different folder to verify their header information before being moved to the final directory. Here's the code I used originally, and although the initial file globbing is slow, the actual renaming is quite fast.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $dir1    = "h:/andrew/bruner/temp/stage/copies";
my $dir2    = "j:/templas";
my $field1  = " ";
my $field2  = " ";
my $testflag = '0';
my $newname = " ";
my $oldname = " ";
my $counter = '0';

print "\nGlobbing 1st set...";
my @files1  = glob("$dir1/*.las");
print "done\nGlobbing 2nd set...";
my @files2  = glob("$dir2/*.las");
print "done.\n";

foreach $field1 (@files1) {
        $testflag = '1';
        
        $oldname = $field1;
        
        while ($testflag == '1') {
                foreach $field2 (@files2) {
                        if (substr($field1, 35, 11) eq substr($field2,
+ 11, 11)) {
                                $counter++;
                                $field1 = substr($field1, 0, 46) . $co
+unter . ".las";
                                print "Trying $field1\n";
                        } else {
                                $testflag = '0';
                        }
                }
        }
        
        if ($counter >= '1') {
                $newname = substr($field1, 0, 46) . $counter . ".las";
        } else {
                $newname = substr($field1, 0, 46) . ".las";
        }
        
        push (@files2, $newname);
        rename $oldname, $newname;
        print "$oldname renamed to $newname";
        
        $counter = 0;
}
[download]

Just this morning, I found this post on Renaming Files by tachyon and it looked like it would work more efficiently than mine. I modified it to fit my situation and found that it DID work better than my original. Here's the new code I used:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $loc_dir  = 'h:/andrew/bruner/temp/stage/';
my $to_dir   = 'h:/andrew/bruner/temp/stage/copies/';
my $net_dir  = 'j:/templas/';
my $from = '.las';
my $counter = '0';
my ($old, $new, $name);
my @usedarray;
     
while (<$loc_dir*$from>) {
     $old = $new = $_;
    
     $new =~ s/^$loc_dir/$net_dir/; 
     
     while (exist($new)) {
          $counter++;
          $new = substr($new, 0, 22) . $counter . ".las";
     }

     $counter = '0';
     $new =~ s/^$net_dir/$to_dir/;
     rename $old, $new;
     print "\nRenamed $old $new";
}

sub exist {
    my $file = shift;
    if (-e $file) {
        print "\nFile $file exists.";
       return 1;
    }
    
    $file =~ s/^$net_dir/$to_dir/;
    
    if (-e $file) {
        print "\nFile $file exists.";
       return 1;
    }
}
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This works exactly like I need it to. So many thanks to you, tachyon, for sharing your code. One thing that puzzles me though is why it takes so much longer for the file globbing in the original code

my @files2  = glob("$dir2/*.las");
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than it does in the newer code

while (<$loc_dir*$from>) {
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Can anyone explain this? Thanks in advance!

^l9v