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

I have the following: 

@duplicate = glob "files/$department/*.txt";

foreach $item (@duplicate) {
        if ($item eq "files/$department/$number.txt") {
        $go_sub = 'yes';
        }
}

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I have some directories that contain spaces and when a directory that does contain spaces the array doesn't match $item properly.

I think I've tried most if not all of the combinations of single/double quotes that makes sense to me....

Ideas, suggestions?

Thanks!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: File::DosGlob
by clemburg (Curate) on Jan 05, 2001 at 14:29 UTC

    From perldoc File::DosGlob: 

        Spaces in the argument delimit distinct patterns, so
    `glob('*.exe *.dll')' globs all filenames that end in `.exe' or
    `.dll'. If you want to put in literal spaces in the glob
    pattern, you can escape them with either double quotes, or
    backslashes. e.g. `glob('c:/"Program Files"/*/*.dll')', or
    `glob('c:/Program\ Files/*/*.dll')'. The argument is tokenized
    using `Text::ParseWords::parse_line()', so see the
    Text::ParseWords manpage for details of the quoting rules used.

    [download]

    Christian Lemburg
    Brainbench MVP for Perl
    http://www.brainbench.com

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Re: File::DosGlob
by eg (Friar) on Jan 04, 2001 at 22:46 UTC

    Well, I don't know about File::DosGlob in particular, but I know that the builtin glob doesn't work with spaces in the filenames (see perlop). Perhaps it best to just readdir and grep yourself. 

    opendir DIR, $directory;
@duplicate = map { "$directory/$_" } grep { /\.txt$/ } readdir DIR;
closedir DIR;

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      glob seems to work just fine for filenames with spaces on Win2K, at least. In a directory with two long filenames, this one-liner prints them both:

      perl -e "print map(qq($_\n),glob('*.txt'))"

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        No, I think the problem is spaces in the wildcards, not in the matches that are returned.

                - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
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Re: File::DosGlob
by Hot Pastrami (Monk) on Jan 04, 2001 at 22:41 UTC
    Or, you could do it the old-fashioned way...
    opendir(DATADIR, "files/$department") or die "Invalid directory!";
@duplicate = readdir(DATADIR);
closedir(DATADIR);

foreach $item (@duplicate) {
   if ($item eq "files/$department/$number.txt") {
      $go_sub = 'yes';
      last;
   }
}

    [download]
    I have usually used glob() myself, but I read recently that it's not the best way to do it, that it has some quirks on different platforms. As for what those quirks are, I haven't a clue.

    Update: However, in reading your code, it looks as though you may be simply trying to verify the presence of a file in that directory... perhaps you just want the -e operator, to see if the file exists: 
    $go_sub = "yes" if -e "files/$department/$number.txt";

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    Hot Pastrami
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(tye) Spaces in wildcards (Re: File::DosGlob)
by tye (Sage) on Jan 05, 2001 at 01:16 UTC

    If you use File::Glob, then spaces in file wildcards are just fine.

    If you use File::DosGlob and then read the documentation, then you will find you can quote the spaces in your wildcard with " or \: 

    use File::DosGlob;
my @matches= glob( qq<"$file"> );
( my $slashed= $file ) =~ s/\s/\\\1/g;
my @files= glob( $slashed );

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    These also work for me without use File::DosGlob (at least when running under Win32 -- I haven't tested this elsewhere).

            - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")
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Re: File::DosGlob
by Albannach (Monsignor) on Jan 04, 2001 at 22:30 UTC
    Try something like this: @dups = glob qq~files/"$dir"/*.txt~;

    --
    I'd like to be able to assign to an luser

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