Re: A looping question

Code posted above should have looked like this

use warnings;
use strict;
use Term::Prompt;
use File::Find;
no warnings 'File::Find';

sub Wanted;
my ($dirname,$ans);
$basedir="/dmp/backup";

        $dirname = prompt('e', 'Enter a dir name', 'e.g. regression-EO
+DDAY1', '','[A-Za-z0-9_-]+' );
        # Check whether the dir already exists
        if (find(\&Wanted, $basedir))
        {
                $ans = prompt('y', 'That dir already exists, do you wi
+sh to overwrite the existing contents ?','[y/n]','n');
                if ($ans == 1) {
                        $dirname = prompt('e', 'Enter a dir name', 'e.
+g. regression-EODDAY1', '','[A-Za-z0-9_-]+' );
                }
                if (find(\&Wanted, $basedir))
                {
                        $ans = prompt('y', 'That dir already exists, d
+o you wish to overwrite the existing contents ?','[y/n]','n');
                        if ($ans == 1) {
                                $dirname = prompt('e', 'Enter a dir na
+me', 'e.g. regression-EODDAY1', '','[A-Za-z0-9_-]+' );
                        }
                }
        }

sub Wanted
{
        my $dir = $File::Find::name;
        print if /$dirname/ ;
        return;
}
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Comment on Re: A looping question Download Code

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Re^2: A looping question by Erez (Priest) on Sep 10, 2010 at 09:11 UTC
First, remove that "no warning" clause, when you develop, warnings are a guide to things that may be wrong, or are wrong. As posted, the program don't compile for a strict violation, you should declare $basedir (and while at it, there's no need to declare Wanted both on the top and bottom of the program. Second, you check twice on the return value of "find" which goes contrary to File::Find's purpose, which is to loop over, recursively, a file tree and perform a certain action on each file/folder. Your logic should go inside the Wanted sub, rather than on an outer loop. "Principle of Least Astonishment: Any language that doesn’t occasionally surprise the novice will pay for it by continually surprising the expert..	[reply]
Re^3: A looping question by Anonymous Monk on Sep 10, 2010 at 09:37 UTC
Ok , your answer has confused me. I take the point about $basedir which I've now declared and also removed the warning and only declared Wanted once. Is find the wrong thing to use to check for the existence of a file ?	[reply]
Re^4: A looping question by Erez (Priest) on Sep 10, 2010 at 20:06 UTC
I see what you mean. File::Find isn't about "finding files", but is a tool for recoursing through a directory tree, and performing an action on some/all of the files/directories. To check for the existence of a file/directory you can use the file tests that come with perl itself (http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/-X.html). for example if you have a $path, `-e $path` will return whether the path exists, `-d $path` will return true if the path is of a directory, and `-f $path` will return true if the path is of a file "Principle of Least Astonishment: Any language that doesn’t occasionally surprise the novice will pay for it by continually surprising the expert..	[reply] [d/l] [select]