System path

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

Hi folks,

I have the following problem: I want to convert a directory PDF->TXT using a third party .exe and using system in Perl.

sub open_directory_file_pdf
{

    my $Directory = File::Spec->canonpath( $mw->chooseDirectory() );
    my $shortpath = Win32::GetShortPathName( "$Directory" );
    chdir($shortpath) or die "$!";
    
    opendir (DIR, "$shortpath") or die "$!";
    my @files = grep {/.*?\.pdf/}  readdir DIR;

    foreach my $file (@files) {
        system ("files/pdftotext.exe -nopgbrk -q \"$file\"" );
    }
close DIR;
}
[download]

I get an error related to "system" -> "file" wrong written or not a command. What I am doing wrong?

PS: if I write

        system ("$file" );        
        system ("pdftotext.exe $file");
[download]

it works fine for opening $file with the standard pdf viewer but same error when it comes to accessing the .exe.....pdftotext.exe works on command line

Comment on System path Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: System path by elef (Friar) on Apr 30, 2011 at 18:49 UTC
As suggested previously, try "files\\pdftotext.exe". IIRC the windows console doesn't accept / in paths to executables (it does accept it in the path of a file to be opened, don't ask why). Anyway, this means you need to use \, and then you need to escape it with another \ for perl's sake.	[reply]
Re: System path by Anonymous Monk on Apr 30, 2011 at 12:19 UTC
I get an error related to "system" -> "file" wrong written or not a command. What I am doing wrong? You're not copy-ing the error message and paste-ing it in `<c></c>` tags :)	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: System path by welle (Beadle) on Apr 30, 2011 at 12:31 UTC
just because it's German Dos... It says "file" is written wrong or the command doesn't exist Der Befehl "files" ist entweder falsch geschrieben oder konnte nicht gefunden werden	[reply]
Re^3: System path by Eliya (Vicar) on Apr 30, 2011 at 12:53 UTC
As the error message suggests, it's attempting to execute a command named "files", so you could try a backslash (presuming the exe is in a subdirectory "files" — otherwise, what's the `files/` supposed to be doing?) `system ("files\\pdftotext.exe -nopgbrk -q \"$file\"" ); ^` [download] Not all components of Windows handle forward slashes and backslashes equivalently...	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: System path by welle (Beadle) on Apr 30, 2011 at 13:12 UTC
Re^4: System path by welle (Beadle) on Apr 30, 2011 at 13:10 UTC
Re^5: System path by Eliya (Vicar) on Apr 30, 2011 at 13:19 UTC
Re^4: System path by Anonymous Monk on Apr 30, 2011 at 12:57 UTC