file::find usage with apache question

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

Greetings Monks

I am stuck with another problem working with server. I'm making a cgi script to search for a word in html files located within my server file structure.

Im using the xampp 1.7.7 running Apache. In my htdocs directory i created a new one called 'myDir' in which i will have a few html files. I am trying to create a cgi script in which i use file::find. I read the cpan article and i understand that since i'm doing the search in one specific directory i need to replace the @directories_to_search array with just my directory name so it looks like this:

find(\&wanted, '/myDir/');

The problem is that when i use the full disk path the script finds the files but not when i use the short localhost path as shown below:

find(\&wanted, 'C:/xampp/htdocs/myDir/');

examples below don't find anything, as the variable $File::Find::name doenst return anything

find(\&wanted, '/myDir/'); find(\&wanted, 'http://localhost/myDir/'); find(\&wanted, 'http://localhost/htdocs/myDir/');

Thank you in advance,

Yoshiro

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Re: file::find usage with apache question by Corion (Patriarch) on May 08, 2012 at 11:29 UTC
`http://localhost/myDir/` simply is not a directory name on your file system, which is why File::Find fails. HTTP and file systems are different - I recommend to learn the difference and use the approach that you already found, using the absolute directory name.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: file::find usage with apache question by aaron_baugher (Curate) on May 08, 2012 at 12:37 UTC
One thing to add: it should be possible to use a relative pathname, but that would be `'myDir'`, not `'/myDir'`. Starting a pathname with a slash makes it an absolute pathname, so it looks for `myDir` in the root filesystem (whatever that means on Windows; maybe `C:\myDir`?). A relative pathname is looked for inside your current working directory, so if your CGI runs from `C:/www/htdocs`, then passing `'myDir'` to `find()` should cause it to look in `C:/www/htdocs/myDir`. If that doesn't work, you'll need to figure out in what current working directory your CGI does run. Or use `chdir` to switch to the right directory before calling `find()`. Or use the absolute pathname, as Corion pointed out and you've already discovered works fine. Aaron B. Available for small or large Perl jobs; see my home node.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: file::find usage with apache question by Corion (Patriarch) on May 08, 2012 at 13:43 UTC
Your approach assumes that the "current working directory" is predictable. It usually isn't, so using absolute path names eliminates one more point of guesswork when debugging a (new) server environment.	[reply]
Re^4: file::find usage with apache question by aaron_baugher (Curate) on May 08, 2012 at 22:57 UTC
Re^4: file::find usage with apache question by Yoshiro (Novice) on May 08, 2012 at 16:11 UTC
Re^5: file::find usage with apache question by tinita (Parson) on May 09, 2012 at 10:39 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re^2: file::find usage with apache question by Yoshiro (Novice) on May 08, 2012 at 12:27 UTC
Thank you for your reply Corion, I understand now, i did some reading and found out about documentroot on Apache. Seems the way i did it specifying the full path is good. My mistake is that i was creating the link badly using just the $File::Find::name variable. Instead now use the $_ to create a good HTTP address or could extract $DocumentRoot from $File::Find::name if there are more subdirectories in 'myDir', again to create valid HTTP addresses. Thank you for pointing it out to me. Yoshiro	[reply]