Problems with blank lines

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

I have a program that takes a directory string, opens it and then reads the directory into an array. It then checks the filesystem objects to see if there is another directory that needs to be searched for files or if there are files. If the objects are files it places those filenames into another array. This array is then placed into a hash with two keys ROOT and FILES.

If there are no files the hash just contains ROOT with a value of "0". The value of ROOT is the directory that contains the files and FILES is a reference to the @files array. The hash is then returned and a refernce to it is placed into another array. Essentially that new array is the entire directory structure with Parent directories and Child files.

The problem is when I print the array there seems to be blank lines that I can't account for and don't know how their getting into my structure? Heres a snippet of code that does all this:

our @Search = ("/directory_2b_searched");

sub open_dir {
    ...Code to open and read directory...
    #Loop thru Directory objects
    foreach $object (@objects) {
        if (-d $path . $object) {
            push @Search, $path . $object; # It's a directory to be se
+arched
        } else {
            push @files, $object; # It's a file
        }
    }
    
    # If @files is empty return %tree with 1 key
    if ($#>files > 0) {
        my %tree = (ROOT=>$path, FILES=>\@files);
        return %tree;
    } else {
        my %tree = (ROOT=>"0");
        return %tree;
    }
}

for (@Search) {
    my %dir_tree = open_dir($_);
    push @dir, \%dir_tree if ($dir_tree{ROOT});
}
[download]

Before %dir_tree is pushed into the @dir array it is checked to make sure it has a TRUE value, which is why I put ROOT=>"0" so that it's evaluated as false. This works because I have no hash values with "0" just blank lines in my output. I just can't figure it out. Thanks

Updated: Also, when I print out the structure I print it out with ROOT a tab and then FILES. So I know that there seems to be a ROOT in a hash with no value and a FILES with no value.

Comment on Problems with blank lines Download Code

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Re: Problems with blank lines by Errto (Vicar) on Nov 30, 2005 at 16:34 UTC
First, are you sure your @dir array really has blank lines in it? Is it possible that some of your strings have newlines on the end of them? Try using Data::Dumper to get a full view of the actual contents of your array. If the problem is in fact trailing newlines, then you might want to use chomp when inserting the strings into your array.	[reply]
Re^2: Problems with blank lines by jakeeboy (Sexton) on Nov 30, 2005 at 16:50 UTC
I didn't know that reading in a directory there would be new lines. But I'll try chomping them when I create the @objects array from readdir. Thanks	[reply]
Re: Problems with blank lines by Roy Johnson (Monsignor) on Nov 30, 2005 at 16:23 UTC
What is `$object`? It looks like it should be the loop variable in your `foreach`, but it isn't, here. In that case, you'd be pushing undef values, which might explain the blank lines. Do you have `use strict;` at the top of your program? Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Problems with blank lines by jakeeboy (Sexton) on Nov 30, 2005 at 16:46 UTC
Sorry the foreach should be: `foreach $object (@objects)` and the testing should be `if (-d $path . $object)` I'll update it. Thanks for catching that.	[reply] [d/l] [select]