Deleting specified files and directories

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

I'm a bit of a Perl newbie (7 days and counting) and I need help! I'm trying to write some code that will delete all files in a specified directory on an NT4 server.

    opendir(DIR, "$basedir/$mesgdir");            
    @allfiles = readdir(DIR);            
    @onlyfiles = grep {!/^\./} @allfiles;        

    foreach $file (@onlyfiles)                
    {
    unlink ($file);
    }
    closedir(DIR);
[download]

As far as I can tell the above code should work. I know that opendir uses the correct directory, I know that a list of files is created (@allfiles) and that @onlyfile is a list of files minus the dot files. The only bit that doesn't work is the unlink part. Can anyone tell me why? Thanks

Comment on Deleting specified files and directories Download Code

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Re: Deleting specified files and directories by MeowChow (Vicar) on May 14, 2001 at 12:09 UTC
`unlink` will operate on files in the current directory, if you haven't provided a fully-specified path when calling it. Try: `foreach my $file (@onlyfiles) { unlink "$basedir/$mesgdir/$file"; }` [download] Also, you will be virtually tarred and feathered unless you `use strict`, turn on warnings (`#!/usr/bin/perl -w`), and check for errors after system calls (such as opendir). MeowChow s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Deleting specified files and directories by Corion (Patriarch) on May 14, 2001 at 12:03 UTC
The only small part you're missing is, that your files are not in the current directory but in `$basedir/$mesgdir`. Otherwise, your code seems fine, but using `unlink $file or die "Couldn't delete $file : $!\n"` is a method to catch your errors earlier `:)` Another thing is, you seem not to be using `strict;`. This would not have helped in this case, but `use strict;` is a good habit to start with early.	[reply]
Re: Deleting specified files and directories by Eureka_sg (Monk) on May 14, 2001 at 12:11 UTC
Hi , when you use unlink you need to specify the full pathname of the file, such as `unlink "$basedir/$mesgdir/$file"` Check out this node Re: File Attributes in Win32 for my reply to a similiar problem : ) UPDATE: Put the pathname in double quotes. Thanks to MeowChow's reminder	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Deleting specified files and directories by Sadmachine (Novice) on May 14, 2001 at 12:36 UTC
Thanks to everyone for the help. I'll add in all those things suggested. I don't want to be virtually tarred and feathered ;-) Thanks	[reply]