Date checking files for a cache

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

Grumble I'm trying to do a date-baised "tempcache" with wsproxy but things are very messy. A section of code (generalized) is:

    &sendfile($file) if(-e $file && -s $file && -M $file < 3);
[download]

Somehow, it always fails to send a file, but if I remove the -M $file < 3, it works (but buggy, I want it to be able to not send from the cache if a file's anchent.

Am I doing some thing wrong?

--
Perl is intergalactic! WolfSkunks use it!

Comment on Date checking files for a cache Download Code

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Re: Date checking files for a cache by chromatic (Archbishop) on Sep 23, 2000 at 23:10 UTC
If this program is long running, be aware that -M reports file ages based on the time your program started. Thus, the results of this snippet are the same, though you might expect otherwise: `print -M 'temp'; print "\n"; sleep 2; print -M 'temp';` [download] stat might be better for you.	[reply] [d/l]
RE: Re: Date checking files for a cache by merlyn (Sage) on Sep 24, 2000 at 01:27 UTC
Rather than go to the complication of stat, you can just update `$^T` as needed: `$^T = time; ... -M $file < 3 ...` [download] -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply] [d/l] [select]
RE: Date checking files for a cache by extremely (Priest) on Sep 24, 2000 at 02:53 UTC
My first thought is why do a '-e' if you are going to do a '-s' too? -s returns false on non-existing files. It has to exist to have a size. Do you have an oddball filesystem? Old version of perl? Is the file a symlink? Can you rewrite the code like this? `{ my $s= -s $file; my $m= -M $file; if ($s and $m > 3) { &sendfile($file) # does it return a checkable value? } else { die "file: $file\nsize: $s, time: $M\n"; } }` [download] Or if you can, debug mode is your friend. The code you sent "WorksForMe", with or without the '-e'. -- $you = new YOU; honk() if $you->love(perl)	[reply] [d/l]
RE: RE: Date checking files for a cache by strredwolf (Chaplain) on Sep 24, 2000 at 23:05 UTC
Hmmm... somehow that's working. Strange. Thanks. -- &$WolfSkunks({use Perl;}); do {$you};	[reply]
Re: Date checking files for a cache by merlyn (Sage) on Sep 23, 2000 at 23:02 UTC
Nothing looks wrong with the code you posted. Must be somewhere else. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker Update: well, yeah, and the "somewhere else" is that perhaps the program is long-running, or something no one has thought of. {grin}	[reply]
RE: Re: Date checking files for a cache by strredwolf (Chaplain) on Sep 24, 2000 at 01:48 UTC
With this program, it only pulls the file, forwards it, and promptly dies. The code above execs almost immedately before I do any network lookups. Strange. -- Perl is intergalactic! WolfSkunks use it!	[reply]