date in required format

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

Hi Monks, I have a FTP script that does the ftp from the server. The server conatin plenty of zip files, in those files i require few ie latest ones, and for the single day there will be multiple files in this format

arident16_Jul282009_2358.zip
arident16_Jul282009_2320.zip
arident16_Jul272009_1619.zip
[download]

I want o campare if it is todays files and time is 2358 then only it should be allowed to be ftp'ed else let it be in the server. I am pasting my code here....

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Net::FTP;
use Archive::Zip;
use IO::File ;
    
print "Retrieving file from abc.com...\n";
$loginip='12.34.56.78';
$loginid='login';
$loginpaswd='password';
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year)=(localtime(time))[0,1,2,3,4,5];
$time_stamp= "_" . (1900+$year) . "_" . ($mon+1) . "_" . ($mday) . "_"
+ . $hour . "_" . $min . "_". $sec;
printf "time stamp = $time_stamp\n";


unless(-d "TFLogs")
{
    mkdir("TFLogs");
}
if( -d "TFLogs")
{
    chdir("TFLogs");
}

$ftp = Net::FTP->new(($loginip), Debug => 0)
or die "Cannot connect to abc.com: $@ \n";

$ftp->login($loginid,$loginpaswd)
or die "Cannot login ", $ftp->message;

$source_dir="nt12/logs/";

$ftp->cwd($source_dir)
or die "Cannot change working directory ", $ftp->message;


$ftp->binary || die "Unable to set mode to binary. ", $ftp->message;

@list=$ftp->ls();
printf "list = \n";
print @list;
foreach $file (@list)
{
<quote>
i want to fit in my code here to check for the latest file and time.
</quote>
    
    $ftp->get($file) or die "get failed ", $ftp->message;
    my $zipname = $file;
    my $destinationDirectory = 'C:\Perl Script\TFLogs';
    my $zip = Archive::Zip->new($zipname);
    foreach my $member ($zip->members)
    {
        next if $member->isDirectory;
        (my $extractName = $member->fileName) =~ s{.*/}{};
        $member->extractToFileNamed(
          "$destinationDirectory/$extractName");
    }


}

$ftp->quit;
[download]

Thanks NT

Comment on date in required format Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: date in required format by FalseVinylShrub (Chaplain) on Jul 29, 2009 at 16:03 UTC
Hi So, you are running through the files on the server and you want to fetch only those whose names end with _Jul282009_2358.zip (for the current date). One way to get the date in that format is using POSIX::strftime. Here is a quick test: `use strict; use warnings; use POSIX qw(strftime); print strftime("arident16_%b%e%Y_2358.zip\n", gmtime); output: arident16_Jul292009_2358.zip` [download] One potential problem with strftime is that the output depends on your locale settings. In other words, the abbreviation Jul may come out differently (in a different language, for example). If so, you could continue constructing the timestamp manually, as you attempted at the top of your code. I will continue with strftime for now, because it makes the code smaller. So to insert into your code: `### at the top of the file: use POSIX qw(strftime); ### ... ### just before your foreach loop: my $files_to_match = strftime("%b%e%Y_2358.zip", gmtime); foreach $file (@list) { # N.B. I am assuming $file contains the filename here. # skip files that don't end with $files_to_match # N.B. could use regex here, not sure what's faster. next unless substr($file, 0 - length($files_to_match)) eq $files_to_match; ### Then what you did already. I didn't check that. } ### quit, etc...` [download] I have tested the above in a very basic way... I didn't check the rest of your code because it seems like you are just asking how to skip files that don't match. I did notice that you are using a mixture of print and printf. In Perl, you generally use print most of the time and only need printf or sprintf when using the formatting strings (%0.2d, etc.). You should think about using warnings and strict (as in my strftime example script, above). Hope this helps.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: date in required format by Anonymous Monk on Jul 30, 2009 at 09:18 UTC
You do the math (subtract a day). Date math can be very complicated (daylight savings, etc), which is why you should use DateTime.	[reply]
Re^3: date in required format by namishtiwari (Acolyte) on Jul 30, 2009 at 09:29 UTC
Any sample example of using DateTime. Thanks NT	[reply]
Re^3: date in required format by namishtiwari (Acolyte) on Jul 30, 2009 at 09:45 UTC
Hi Monks, I got it working this way. `my($var1 ,$var2 ,$var3 ,$var4 ,$var5) = split (/ /, scalar (localtime( +time - 86400))); my $dateformat = "$var2$var3$var5";` [download] Thanks NT	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: date in required format by namishtiwari (Acolyte) on Jul 30, 2009 at 09:11 UTC
Thanks alot for your valuebale information. I have one more query and ie -- how to get the previous day date in the format i asked. Thanks NT	[reply]
Re: date in required format by psini (Deacon) on Jul 29, 2009 at 15:33 UTC
~~I'm sorry, but I couldn't find a question in your post.~~ Update: Forget it. I found it, in the middle of the code. Rule One: "Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man."	[reply]