How can I get -M to work properly?

kleinbiker7 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Currently I am trying to find the age of certain files in days. So I am trying to use -M to do that.

The prob is that -M doesnt seem to be working on these files. Is it the filename, or is it a permissions prob?

Here is the code that I am using:

while ($file = readdir (DIR))
{
    if ($file !~ /^\.+$/)
    {
        # GET THE AGE OF THE FILE IN DAYS
        # -M gives us the age of the file in days when script started.
        # It needs to be rounded!
        
        $age = -M ($file);
        $age = sprintf ("%0.0f", $age);
        
        
        print "FILE: $file:\n\tAGE: $age\n";
        
        if ($age > 2)
        {
            print "DELETE ME!\n";
        }
        else
        {
            print "SAVE ME\n";
        }
    }
}
[download]

Age is blank and after the sprintf statement it is 0, which is NOT correct!

Here is a sample listing of the files that I am trying to determine the age of (in days).

  7 -rw-rw-r--   1 root         6441 Jun 17 00:00 2001-06-16T194921Z_0
+1_N16487427_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-DOCTORS-UNION.XML
   6 -rw-rw-r--   1 root         5148 Jun 17 04:55 2001-06-17T082435Z_
+01_L17466768_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-ISRAEL-TEVA.XML
   9 -rw-rw-r--   1 root         8558 Jun 17 13:05 2001-06-17T163225Z_
+01_N17218051_RTRIDST_0_-FINANCE-IPO-OUTLOOK.XML
  10 -rw-rw-r--   1 root         9490 Jun 17 13:50 2001-06-17T171804Z_
+01_N17360454_RTRIDST_0_CONGRESS-HEALTH.XML
   7 -rw-rw-r--   1 root         6176 Jun 18 03:05 2001-06-18T063312Z_
+01_ZUR821703_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-MEDICA-IMPLANTS-U
RGENT.XML
[download]

Thanks Robert

Edit: chipmunk 2001-06-20

Comment on How can I get -M to work properly? Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: How can I get -M to work properly? by clintp (Curate) on Jun 20, 2001 at 19:35 UTC
A few things. First, what was $age before you did the sprintf thingy? That'd be much more useful than seeing it afterwards. If it's undef, then make sure that $file contiains enough the pathname to the file. Items returned by opendir() don't have a path appended to them. Lastly (and tangental), has it been more than two days (rounded) since June 17 00:00?	[reply]
Re: Re: How can I get -M to work properly? by kleinbiker7 (Sexton) on Jun 20, 2001 at 19:44 UTC
Man, Thanks for helping me here! PerlMonks Rules! I didnt give it the bloody path Thanks for saving a poor monk from programmer's frustration! Robert	[reply]
Re: How can I get -M to work properly? by azatoth (Curate) on Jun 20, 2001 at 19:33 UTC
It seems it would be much easier to just do - `if ( (-M $file) > 1 ) { # if file is over a day old do_unlinkSubHere($file); # as stated below, include the whole path i +n $file } else { print "Today, I will spare your life, young $file...\n"; }` [download] This strikes me as more simple than assigning a variable with the age etc...If you want to look at file tests in action, have a look at this. Azatoth a.k.a Captain Whiplash Make Your Die Messages Full of Wisdom! Get YOUR PerlMonks Stagename here! Want to speak like a Londoner?	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How can I get -M to work properly? by converter (Priest) on Jun 20, 2001 at 20:09 UTC
It's always a good idea to check the results of file tests. `$ perl -e '$age = -M "foo.txt" or die "problem: $!"; print "Age: $age\n"' Age: 6.13123842592593 $ perl -e '$age = -M "foobar.txt" or die "problem: $!"; print "Age: $age\n"' problem: No such file or directory at -e line 1.`	[reply]
Re: How can I get -M to work properly? by buckaduck (Chaplain) on Jun 20, 2001 at 19:36 UTC
If `DIR` is not the current directory, you will need to prepend the path to each filename before the -M test. `$age = -M "$path/$file";` [download] buckaduck	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: How can I get -M to work properly? by bikeNomad (Priest) on Jun 20, 2001 at 19:36 UTC
This is unlikely to be a permissions problem, as you can read the directory to get the names of the files (I'm assuming your script prints out the names). You might want to try listing the mod times in your script: `my @stat = stat($file); print $file, " ", scalar(localtime($stat[9])), "\n";` [download] update: -M returns a float.	[reply] [d/l]