Checking for Files

akrrs7 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello, I have a text file which has a list of files. I need to check a certain path to see if each of these files exist and if they do, then get the filesize and time and print these parameters into a new text file. This is my code:

my $thisPath = cwd;

my $inputFile = "${thisPath}${ps}inputFileInfo.txt";

    my $pathToCheck = "c:${ps}temp";
    my $outputFile = "${thisPath}${ps}resultsFile_$timestamp.txt";
    open theInputFile, $inputFile or die "Could not read from $inputFi
+le, program halting. \n";

    while (<theInputFile>)
    {
        chomp;
        my $fileBeingChecked = "${pathToCheck}${ps}$_";
        
        open (theOutputFile, '>', $outputFile) or die "Could not open 
+$outputFile. \n";
        
        
        if (-e $fileBeingChecked)
        {
            my $fileSize = -s $fileBeingChecked;
            my $date_string = ctime(stat($fileBeingChecked)->mtime);
            print theOutputFile "Yes, $fileSize, $date_string \n";
        }
        else
        {
            print theOutputFile "No \n";
        }

    }
        close (theOutputFile)
    close (theInputFile)
[download]

Only getting a single line output in the OutputFile and the results - size of file and date do not match Thanks...

Comment on Checking for Files Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Checking for Files by RichardK (Parson) on Nov 18, 2011 at 13:47 UTC
You haven't opened the output for write. it's clearer to use the 3 parameter version of open like this :- `open ( my $fh,'>',$filename) or die "$filename : $!";` [download] Check out the help for open	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Checking for Files by akrrs7 (Acolyte) on Nov 18, 2011 at 14:04 UTC
Hello Richard, That works - thanks... However, I am only getting the results for the first line in my input file. Thanks.	[reply]
Re^3: Checking for Files by aaron_baugher (Curate) on Nov 18, 2011 at 15:11 UTC
You're opening your output file inside your while loop, so it's getting closed and then wiped out and reopened for each line of your input file. So you're actually getting the size and date of the last file listed in your input file, not the first. Open your output file outside your while loop, as you do with your input file, and that should fix that. Aaron B. My Woefully Neglected Blog, where I occasionally mention Perl.	[reply]
Re^3: Checking for Files by akrrs7 (Acolyte) on Nov 18, 2011 at 14:13 UTC
Also - the values that I am getting for filesize and date modified do not match	[reply]
Re^4: Checking for Files by mbethke (Hermit) on Nov 18, 2011 at 16:47 UTC
Re: Checking for Files by graff (Chancellor) on Nov 19, 2011 at 04:00 UTC
The problem that aaron_baugher pointed out is the main thing, but once you get past that, the script will take somewhat longer to run than it needs to, because you're calling the "stat" function multiple times on each file. I'd do it like this (not tested): use strict; use warnings; use POSIX; use File::Spec; my $inputFile = "inputFileInfo.txt"; my $outputFile = strftime( "resultsFile_%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S.txt", localt +ime(time())); my $pathToCheck = File::Spec->catfile( 'c:', 'temp' ); open( IN, '<', $inputFile ) or die "$inputFile: $!\n"; open( OUT, '>', $outputFile ) or die "$outputFile: $!\n"; while ( <IN> ) { chomp; my $checkFile = File::Spec->catfile( $pathToCheck, $_ ); my @stats = stat $checkFile; if ( @stats ) { printf OUT ( "%s: %d, %s\n", $checkFile, $stats[7], scalar( localtime( $stats[9] ))); } else { print OUT "$checkFile: stat failed (file not readable or not f +ound)\n"; } } [download]	[reply] [d/l]