This kind of problem from a CGI script yells out to pay attention to the current directory. It's often "/" instead of the directory in which the script resides. If that's the problem, adding the following will do the trick.

use File::Spec::Functions qw( rel2abs );
use File::Basename        qw( dirname );
BEGIN { chdir(dirname(rel2abs($0))); }
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Update: Oops, typed basename instead of rel2abs. Fixed.

You forgot to use the rel2abs function.

$0 or __FILE__

What about them?

I'm sure the python script probably does other stuff than what you mentioned, but if the directory not being made is an issue... I mean, couldn't you always just make it in Perl?

Just my 2 cents... it's usually easier to not have to try and daisy chain different stuff together if it is possible to do it all with Tool X

The python script mentioned was written by someone other than myself. They use several python tricks -- which may or may-not have equivelents in perl (i am no expert in cracking open binary files)

Below is the python code as mentioned.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys  # sys.argv[1]
import os   # os.walk(home)
import gzip # gzip.open(filename)
import commands # commands.getoutput

home = "./FFCache/"
if sys.argv[1:]: home = sys.argv[1] 

cachedata = "../../Documents/cachedata/"
#commands.getoutput('chmod -R ../../Documents')
#if sys.argv[2:]: cachedata = sys.argv[2]
#commands.getoutput('rm -R cachedata')
#commands.getoutput('rmdir cachedata')
#os.mkdir(cachedata)

#print "Making directory ", cachedata, "for copying cached files.\n"
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(home):
    for filename in files:
        if "_CACHE_" in filename:
            continue
        content = None
        try:
            f = gzip.open(root + filename,"rb")
            data = f.read()
            if 'PNG' in data[:10]:
                content = "png"
            elif 'GIF89a' in data[:10]:
                content = "gif"
            elif 'JFIF' in data[:10]:
                content = "jpeg"
            elif 'HTML' in data[:20]:
                content = "html"
            elif 'html' in data[:20]:
                content = "html"
            else:
                continue
            #print "Copying ",filename," -> ", cachedata + filename +"
+."+ content
            #print data[:20]
            f_out = open(cachedata + filename +"."+ content, "wb")
            f_out.write(data)
            #os.chmod(f_out, 0777)            
        except IOError:
            f = open(root + filename,"rb")
            data = f.read()
            if 'PNG' in data[:10]:
                content = "png"
            elif 'GIF89a' in data[:10]:
                content = "gif"
            elif 'JFIF' in data[:10]:
                content = "jpeg"
            elif 'HTML' in data[:20]:
                content = "html"
            elif 'html' in data[:20]:
                content = "html"
            else:
                continue
            #print "Copying ",filename," -> ", cachedata + filename +"
+."+ content
            #print data[:50]
            f_out = open(cachedata + filename +"." + content, "wb")
            f_out.write(data)
            #os.chmod(f_out, 0777)

commands.getoutput('chmod -R 777 cachedata')
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home = "./FFCache/"
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The current directory is not what you think. Change (for example, in your Perl script) the current directory to an absolute, known path.

Alternatively, from reading the Python program, you can give it the base directory as the first argument, so you might want to try that.

Also, you might want to replace

commands.getoutput('chmod -R 777 cachedata') </c>

with the native Python function calls instead of a (brittle) system call.

Yeah, I'm not seeing anything here that looks too crazy, much less unique to Python. I can try my hand at a Perl version tomorrow if nobody cooler does it before then :)

---

I'm a peripheral visionary... I can see into the future, but just way off to the side.

Alright, so here's my shot at a Perl version of the above. Note that there is quite a bit of commented-out code in the Python version, so I didn't reproduce that.

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use feature ':5.10';
use File::Find;
use File::Basename;
use IO::Uncompress::AnyUncompress;

# Note: if this script isn't being run from the same directory as the
# python one was, chdir to it! Or convert everything to absolute paths
+.

my $home = $ARGV[0] // q{./FFCache/};    # 5.10 idiom
my $cachedata = q{../../Documents/cachedata/};

# The python script has some commented out stuff here, so I won't rewr
+ite it

find(  { wanted => \&process_file, no_chdir => 1 },  $home  );

sub process_file {
    my $name = basename( $File::Find::name ); # Needed because we are 
+running no_chdir
    return if $name =~ /_CACHE_/;
    
    my $content;
    my $data;
    my $gzip;
    
    if (  $gzip = new IO::Uncompress::AnyUncompress( $File::Find::name
+ )  ) {
        my $status = $gzip->read( $data );
        return unless $status > 0;
    }
    else {
        open my $file, '<', $File::Find::name or return;
        $data = do { local $/; <$file> };
        close $file;
    }
    
    # This seems like an odd way of doing the following, but it's
    # how the python script does it, so who am I to argue?
    if ( substr($data, 0, 10) =~ /PNG/ ) {
        $content = 'png';
    }
    elsif ( substr($data, 0, 10) =~ /GIF89a/ ) {
        $content = 'gif';
    }
    elsif ( substr($data, 0, 10) =~ /JFIF/ ) {
        $content = 'jpeg';
    }
    elsif ( substr($data, 0, 20) =~ /HTML/i ) {
        $content = 'html';
    }
    else {
        return;
    }    
    
    my $fname = $cachedata . $name . '.' . $content;
    open my $f_out, '>', $fname or return;
    print $f_out $data;
    chmod 0777, $f_out;
    close $f_out;
}
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