Update:Test your code before you press that pesky Submit button ...

You want to do some globbing on the filenames. This could be done with the perlfunc:glob() builtin, but you also want some ordering.

Here is one approach :

• If a start date is given too short, append 01 to it until it is long enough. This will expand 2000 to 20000101, but it will expand 19 to 19010101, which might not be what you want.

    my ($startdate, $enddate);
  
    $startdate .= "01" while( length( $startdate ) <= 8 );
    $enddate .= "01" while( length( $enddate ) <= 8 );
  [download]

• Then, as you have fully specified dates, remark that date $a is later in time than date $b when the string comparision $a gt $b is true. We will use this to step through the list of all logfiles and spew out those that are in the right timeslot :

    my (@logfilelist);
    @logfilelist = sort @logfilelist;
  
    # Cut away everything that is too early
    while ($#logfilelist > -1 && $startdate lt @logfilelist[0]) {
      shift @logfilelist;
    };
  
    # Cut away everything that is too late
    while ($#logfilelist > -1 && $enddate gt @logfilelist[-1]) {
      pop @logfilelist;
    };
  
    # Now, @logfilelist contains all the logfiles in question
  [download]

<INPUT>;
/^(\d*)\s*(\d*)/;  #split input
($first, $second) = ($1, $2);
$first =~ /(\d{4})(\d{2})?(\d{2})?/; # split the year, mo, and day
$fyear = $1;
$fmon = defined( $2 ) ? $2 : 1; #if not specified, use 1
$fday = defined( $3 ) ? $3 : 1; #ditto
$second =~ /(\d{4})(\d{2})?(\d{2})?/; # split the year, mo, and day
$syear = $1;
$smon = defined( $2 ) ? $2 : 1; #if not specified, use 1
$sday = defined( $3 ) ? $3 : 1; #ditto

# got input, now to 'expand'
my @list;
for ( my $y = $fyear; $y <= $syear; $y++ ) {
    for ( my $m = ( $y==$fyear ) ? $fmon; 1 ; 
             $m <= ( $y==$syear) ? $smon : 12; 
             $m++ ) {
        for( my $d = ( ( $y==$fyear) && ($m==$fmon) ) ? $fday : 1 ; 
                $d <= ( ( $y==$syear) && ($m==$smon) ) ? $sday : 31 ; 
                $d++) {
            push @list, sprintf("%04d%02d%02d", $y, $m, $d);
        }
    }
}

# And now @list holds an expanded list between the first
# date and second, including 'fake' days that probably can
# be ignored... maybe include here a test to remove the
# bogus entires:
my @goodlist;
foreach $i @list {
    if ( -x $i ) { push @goodlist, $i; }
}

# note that @list or @goodlist will be already sorted in
# date order...
[download]

Edit: 2001-03-03 by neshura

While it looks like this will work, it will take a lot longer than Corion's. Also, you should use < code> tags instead of < pre> tags
It would be faster to do a readdir and weed out the files outside the range. Doing a file test for every possibilty can be a bit disk intensive. Crossing the century boundry isn't much of a problem since the file range format is done so that the file for Dec 20, 1999 is less than Jan 4, 2001. You method does make sure that non-dates are not listed.
I was wondering if this question could be a homework question, which stops me from doing a full solution. (well, that and I should be working...)

Good luck

 $HelpMessage = "

<date/range/week> =  YYYYMMDD = individual day
                      YYYYMMDD.YYYYMMDD = series of individual days
                      YYYYMMDD-YYYYMMDD = weeklong reporting period
                     -YYYYMMDD = weeklong reporting period
";

################################################################

if (index($PERIODIN,"-") == 0) { $periodlength = "day"; }
else                           { $periodlength = "week"; }
if (!defined $InFileDir) { 
    if ($R_OR_I ne "a" && $R_OR_I ne "b") { 
        if (!(defined $Special)) { $rori = $R_OR_I; }
        else                     { $rori = $R_OR_I . "s"; }
        }
    elsif ($R_OR_I eq "a") {
        if    (defined $AggrExceptions)            { $rori = "ae"; }
        elsif (defined $Config || defined $Report) { $rori = "ap"; }
        else                                       { $rori = "ar"; }
        }
    elsif ($R_OR_I eq "b") { $rori = "b"; }
    $InFileDir = $InFileDirX{$rori,$periodlength};
    }

if (!(-d $InFileDir))
   {die "\n  Directory $InFileDir \n    does not exist\n\n";}


$MonthDay[1] = $MonthDays[3]  = $MonthDays[5]  = $MonthDays[7]=31;
$MonthDays[8] = $MonthDays[10] = $MonthDays[12] = 31;
$MonthDays[4] = $MonthDays[6]  = $MonthDays[9]  = $MonthDays[11]=30;
$MonthDays[2] = 28;

$Leap{1996} = $FakeEndFeb{19960228} = 1;
$Leap{2000} = $FakeEndFeb{20000228} = 1;
$Leap{2004} = $FakeEndFeb{20040228} = 1;
$Leap{2008} = $FakeEndFeb{20080228} = 1;
$Leap{2012} = $FakeEndFeb{20120228} = 1;

if (index($PERIODIN,".") == 0) {
    $numdates = 1;
    if (substr($PERIODIN,1,1) eq "-") {
        $begdate = $enddate = substr($PERIODIN,2);
        for (1..6) {
            $begdate = &getprevday($begdate);
            }
        $date[1] = $begdate . "-" . $enddate;
        }
    else { $date[1] = $PERIODIN; }
    }
else {
    ($begdate, $enddate, @junkjunk) = split(/\./,$PERIODIN);
    $numdates = 1;
    $date[1] = $perd = $begdate;
    while ($perd < $enddate) {
        $numdates++;
        $date[$numdates] = $perd = &getnextday($perd);
        }
    }




sub getnextday {
    local($today) = @_;
    local($nextday);
    $nyr = int($today / 10000);
    $nmo = int(($today - (10000 * $nyr)) / 100);
    $nda = $today - (10000 * $nyr) - (100 * $nmo) + 1;
    if (($nmo != 2 && $nda > $MonthDays[$nmo]) ||
        ($nmo == 2 && (!(defined $Leap{$nyr})) && $nda > 28) ||
        ($nmo == 2 &&   (defined $Leap{$nyr})  && $nda > 29)) {
        $nda = 1; 
        $nmo = $nmo + 1;
        if ($nmo > 12) {
            $nmo = 1;
            $nyr = $nyr + 1
           }
       }
    $nextday = $nyr * 10000 + $nmo * 100 + $nda;
    }

sub getprevday {
    local($today) = @_;
    local($prevday);
    $pyr = int($today / 10000);
    $pmo = int(($today - (10000 * $pyr)) / 100);
    $pda = $today - (10000 * $pyr) - (100 * $pmo) - 1;
    if ($pda == 0) {
        $pmo = $pmo - 1;
        if ($pmo == 0) {
            $pyr = $pyr - 1;
            $pmo = 12;
            }
        if ($pmo != 2)              {$pda = $MonthDays[$pmo];}
        elsif (defined $Leap{$pyr}) {$pda = 29;}
        else                        {$pda = 28;}
        }
    $prevday = $pyr * 10000 + $pmo * 100 + $pda;
    }
[download]