drum1981 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello all. i have this little snppet of code here: 
#libraries used are up above
my @dirs=("C:/jobs/writebacks"); #array containing directories that ar
+e being searched

  foreach my $dir (@dirs)
  { #look at each directory
    
    my @files=read_dir($dir); # read directory
    $dir =~  /[^:]\/(.*)\/$/;
    my $end_direct = $1;
    chdir("$dir"); #change back to the directory just read
 foreach(@files)
      { #steps through each file in the contents
        if ( /^(\d{5})$/)
          {
          my $file= $1; #assigns regex to the file name
          $file = $file."/$end_direct";
          DPSI::utils::mkdirR("C:\\FolderB\\$file");          
DPSI::utils::nCopy      ($_, "C:\\FolderB\\$file");           
          }#match bracket if statement
      }#inner for each
  }#outer

[download]
$1 is not receving that value of the reg ex to apply to $end_direct. i am trying to get it read the subdirectory, in this case writebacks and paste it on the end of a new directory, say C:/new_dir/writebacks. anyone have any thoughts why this isn't working?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: $1 not getting applied to reg ex
by tlm (Prior) on Jul 26, 2005 at 14:11 UTC

    How do you know that the regex has matched? If $dir doesn't end in a slash, the match will fail and will not set $1.

    the lowliest monk

[reply]
Re: $1 not getting applied to reg ex
by japhy (Canon) on Jul 26, 2005 at 14:56 UTC
    Your regex doesn't match the data you're giving it! Your string is "C:/jobs/writebacks", but your regex says: "match a non-colon character, than a /, then zero or more characters, then a /, then the end of the string". The first problem is that you probably meant [^:]:, which would match a non-colon (like 'C') and then the colon after it. But why not just use the File::Basename module?
    Jeff japhy Pinyan, P.L., P.M., P.O.D, X.S.: Perl, regex, and perl hacker
    How can we ever be the sold short or the cheated, we who for every service have long ago been overpaid? ~~ Meister Eckhart
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: $1 not getting applied to reg ex
by davorg (Chancellor) on Jul 26, 2005 at 14:10 UTC

    When you previewed your post and you saw the message saying:

    If something looked unlike you expected it to you might need to check out Writeup Formatting Tips

    Did you _really_ like the way your post looked?

    It's hard to read your code with it formatted as badly as it is, but I strongly suspect that you are trying to reinvent File::Find. And you'd probably be better off using the original File::Find instead.

    --
    <http://www.dave.org.uk>

    "The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club."
    -- Chip Salzenberg

[reply]
      hi hows it going. this code is actually meant to transfer some directories along with their sub contents to another directory. basically i am looking at 6 or so base directories, of the form say C:/base_dir/5_digit_number/contents. i need to move them to C:/new_folder/5_digit_number/base_dir_name/contents. once i go through the other base directories they will have directories with the same 5 digit numbers, but different contents, and it would add a new directory within 5_digit_number with its contents, and so on so forth. if you have any thoughts on what i am doing incorrectly, please let me know. thanks
[reply]

        So I was right. You _are_ trying to reinvent File::Find :)

        I think you want something a bit like this (but I haven't had a chance to test it)

        #!/use/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use File::Find;
use File::Path;
use File::Copy;

@_ >= 2 or die "Usage: $0 <source_dir> <dest_dir>\n";

my ($src, $dest) = @_;

find(\&do_this, $src);

sub do_this {
  if (-d) {
    mkpath([$File::Find::name]);
  } else {
    my $new = $File::Find::name;
    $new =~ s|/$src/|/$dest/|;
    copy $_, $new;
  }
}

        [download]
        --
        <http://www.dave.org.uk>

        "The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club."
        -- Chip Salzenberg

[reply]
[d/l]
Re: $1 not getting applied to reg ex
by phaylon (Curate) on Jul 26, 2005 at 14:06 UTC
    Please use <code> tags, so ppl can read your source.
    Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley
[reply]

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