Re: Error executing

or die "Can't open $filename!";

Get more information on why the open failed by printing $!

or die "Can't open $filename $!";
[download]

Perhaps the file doesn't exist or you don't have permissions to open it.

I much rather have the user enter the path at the terminal. How would I do this?

You could prompt the user like this:

use strict;
use warnings;

use File::stat;
# Declare variables
my $filename;
my $FILE_HANDLE;
my $file_stat;
my $current_time;
my $diff_seconds;
print "enter a file:\n";
$filename = <STDIN>;
chomp $filename;
# Open the file
open ($FILE_HANDLE, $filename)
or die "Can't open $filename: $!";
[download]

Or, pass it in on the command line, then use shift:

use strict;
use warnings;

use File::stat;
# Declare variables
my $filename;
my $FILE_HANDLE;
my $file_stat;
my $current_time;
my $diff_seconds;
$filename = shift;
# Open the file
open ($FILE_HANDLE, $filename)
or die "Can't open $filename: $!";
[download]

Comment on Re: Error executing Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Error executing by Nathan_84 (Acolyte) on May 15, 2010 at 00:58 UTC
Hi Toolic, Thanks for your help. I used the first script you mentioned for prompting the user. Running the script showed when the file was last modified in seconds. I tried changing to show when the script was created but failed when changing the line $file_stat->mtime to $file_stat->ctime. It also got me wondering whether it would be better to produce a script which showed when created and last modified? Thanks again for time and help Toolic!	[reply]
Re^3: Error executing by almut (Canon) on May 15, 2010 at 09:12 UTC
Just a side note: the `'c'` in `ctime` doesn't stand for "create" (a common misconception, though). Better think of it as "change", as it refers to when the file's status (i.e. inode meta information) was last changed. Now, you may wonder what the difference then is to modification time (`mtime`)... The latter isn't updated when you change the mode/owner/group of the file, or the link count changes, etc. For example: `#!/bin/sh rm -f foo touch foo stat foo sleep 3 echo bar >>foo stat foo sleep 3 chmod o-r foo # changes ctime only stat foo` [download] Output: File: `foo' Size: 0 Blocks: 0 IO Block: 4096 regular empt +y file Device: 811h/2065d Inode: 36356982 Links: 1 Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ almut) Gid: ( 1000/ almu +t) Access: 2010-05-15 11:08:00.000000000 +0200 Modify: 2010-05-15 11:08:00.000000000 +0200 Change: 2010-05-15 11:08:00.000000000 +0200 File: `foo' Size: 4 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file Device: 811h/2065d Inode: 36356982 Links: 1 Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 1000/ almut) Gid: ( 1000/ almu +t) Access: 2010-05-15 11:08:00.000000000 +0200 Modify: 2010-05-15 11:08:03.000000000 +0200 <--- Change: 2010-05-15 11:08:03.000000000 +0200 <--- File: `foo' Size: 4 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file Device: 811h/2065d Inode: 36356982 Links: 1 Access: (0640/-rw-r-----) Uid: ( 1000/ almut) Gid: ( 1000/ almu +t) Access: 2010-05-15 11:08:00.000000000 +0200 Modify: 2010-05-15 11:08:03.000000000 +0200 Change: 2010-05-15 11:08:06.000000000 +0200 <--- [download] As you can see, the file was modified before it had been created... ;)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Error executing by Nathan_84 (Acolyte) on May 15, 2010 at 22:15 UTC
Hi thanks for the useful insight. After reading some documentation I came the utime function, which would be able to provide the modification and access time. However so far I've struggled to input into the first script provided by toolic. Oh well I'm sure I'll work it out sooner rather then later :) Thanks again for the response.	[reply]