I'm sure there is something equivalent for Windows. You can also use the fact that some Windows commands don't let you rename files which are open or rename directories which have open files under them them. Don't know what they are, but I run into that problem all the time using the Windows Explorer.

What is not clear is what you mean by "the file has stopped growing". I hope you don't conclude "hard disk full" when this happens... The semantics and dynamics of log file access are not known in your problem description. Based on what I read, the only thing that can be improved it fine-tuning the sleep interval ("stopped growing" means two consecutive reads yield the same size? or size doesn't change in 5 minutes? it is not clear ...). If you want the file to be moved when it reaches a certain size (popular option in handling logs), you can fine-tune your sleep based on the file growth speed (oh, well, not always easy to guesstimate, depending on the use scenario ...) and just move the file the first time it exceeds your size limit (that would be checked for in the foreach body.

Hard to give more details/opinions with only the info you provided, but your approach is good.

I suspect you want to wait until the writing process closes the file before you copy it and are using the fact that the file isn't growing anymore to assume this has occurred. Since this is Windows, you could probably take advantage of file locking instead. If you attempt to open the file without allowing other accessors, the open should fail unless the other process has closed it. You could retry with a delay until successful.

Another option might be to use a utility like RoboCopy which should be available from one of Microsoft's download sites if it's not on your system already. It should detect locked files and exit with a status indicating whether it succeeded or not.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Basename; # Gives us fileparse()
use File::Path;     # Gives us mkpath
use File::Copy;        # Gives us move

###############################################################
# NOTE: Set these variables according to your paths and desired
# filetype.
#
# Set input\output paths, filetype, and sleep time.
my $inputd    = 'C:\temp';
my $outputd   = 'D:\test\output';
my $filetype  = 'pcm';
my $sleeptime = 1;    # seconds to wait between directory reads
###############################################################

# Disable print buffer.
$| = 1;

# Print message to user.
print "\nAutomated File Move Utility";
print "\n\nThis script is attempting to move all $filetype files:";
print "\nsource:      $inputd\ndestination: $outputd";
print "\n\nPress Ctrl+C to stop...\n\n";

# Repeat indefinitely.
while (1)
{    
    # Create output directory if it doesn't exist already.
    if (!-e $outputd) 
    {
        mkpath ($outputd, 0) 
            or die "\nError - unable to create $outputd: $!\n\n";
    }
    
    # Get files (full path and name).
    my @infiles  = glob ("$inputd\\*.$filetype");
    
    # Form hash that relates input and output files.
    my %outfiles;
    foreach my $inputf (@infiles)
    {
        my $basename = fileparse ($inputf, $filetype);
        $outfiles{$inputf} = "$outputd\\$basename"."$filetype";
    }
    
    # This block just provides feedback for testing purposes.
    if (0)
    {
        print "\nINPUT:";
        foreach (@infiles) {print "\n$_"}
        print "\nOUTPUT:";
        foreach (keys %outfiles) {print "\n$outfiles{$_}"}
    }
    
    # Wait for some time.
    sleep $sleeptime;
    
    # Attempt to move each input file.
    foreach my $inputf (@infiles)
    {
        next if (! move $inputf, $outfiles{$inputf});    
        print "\nMoved $inputf to $outfiles{$inputf}";    
    }
}
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