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

Wondering if Perl would be a good solution for this. I want to find all instances of a shortcut named "abc.lnk" and rename it to "def.lnk", for example. I know that the shortcut will appear somewhere within the C:\Documents and Settings folder. Things I won't know: how many instances of the shortcut exist, and the exact path(s) to the shortcut. In other words, the shortcut could exist at C:\Documents and Settings\user1\startmenu\abc, or C:\Documents and Settings\user2\shortcuts\abc, and so on.
  • Comment on find instances of a file without knowing specific path

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Re: find instances of a file without knowing specific path
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Aug 09, 2007 at 18:03 UTC

    Yup, see File::Find::Rule

    Update: Code: 

    use File::Find::Rule      qw( );
use File::Basename        qw( dirname );
use File::Spec::Functions qw( catfile );

my $rule = File::Find::Rule
           ->file
           ->name('abc.lnk')  # Wildcards allowed
           ->start('C:\\Documents and Settings');

while (defined(my $src = $rule->match()) {
   my $dst = catfile(dirname($match), 'def.lnk');

   if (-e $dst) {
      warn("Unable to rename \"$src\": " .
           "Destination \"$dst\" already exists\n");
      next;
   }

   if (!rename($src, $dst)) {
      warn("Unable to rename \"$src\": $!\n");
      next;
   }

   print("Renamed \"$src\" to \"$dst\"\n") if $verbose;
}

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Re: find instances of a file without knowing specific path
by wind (Priest) on Aug 09, 2007 at 19:54 UTC
    Just use File::Find: 
    use File::Find;

my $dir  = 'C:\Documents and Settings';
my $from = 'abc.lnk';
my $to   = 'def.lnk';

find(sub {
    if ($_ eq $from) {
        print "$File::Find::name -> $to\n";
        rename($_, $to);
    }
}, $dir);

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    - Miller
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