Recursive Path

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

Hi Monks,
I have the code below that will give me the current directory, I am using it to open files without having to type the entire path to it, but I am having a problem where I need to access a file that is in a different location on my directory structure, how can I open a file using similar code to open a file in a different location like one directory lower from where this code is?
Thanks.

BEGIN
 {
  $0 =~ '(.*[\\\/])\w+\.\w+$';
  $curr_dir = $1 || "./";

 }
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Comment on Recursive Path Download Code

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Re: Recursive Path by jpeg (Chaplain) on May 27, 2005 at 20:09 UTC
That code isn't reliable, nor is it designed to be. perldoc ~~perlop~~ perlvar will tell you that $0 is the name of the currently running script. It isn't supposed to be the current working directory and that assumption is easily broken by calling a script from another directory. Use the core module Cwd if you need the current directory. Use another core module, File::Find if you want to process files from there. HTH. Update: D'oh, $0 and other fun variables are documented in perldoc perlvar, not perldoc perlop. -- jpg	[reply]
Re: Recursive Path by djohnston (Monk) on May 27, 2005 at 20:03 UTC
I `use File::Spec::Functions qw(catfile)`, then I call catfile to append stuff to the path, like this: `catfile( $curr_dir, 'subdir' )`.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Recursive Path by nobull (Friar) on May 28, 2005 at 07:36 UTC
I believe this is not necessary. It is usually sufficient just to use '/' - Perl will figure it out. File::Spec is only needed when you need filenames that can be passed to external programs that require them to be expressed in the host OS's syntax.	[reply]
Re: Recursive Path by nobull (Friar) on May 28, 2005 at 07:40 UTC
You are confusing 'current directory' with 'directory where the script is'. You have rolled you own poor man's FindBin but you do not need to be a poor man - FindBin is standard.	[reply]