i'm trying to write a recursive function to step through a series of directories and subdirectories, but i'm having trouble with it. now, i know everyone's going to say i should use File::Find, but i'm doing this for a commissioned job, and the employer doesnt want to use ANY modules (something about minimalizing the program ::shrug::).

anyway, the function, called traversePath, is passed a root pathname, and it's supposed to call another instance of itself for each subdirectory and pass it $npath, but when it calls the new instance, it seems to use the same $path as the instance that called it, which basically puts it into an infinite loop, rechecking the root dir over and over again...

heres the sub: 

sub traversePath($path)
{
  ##DEBUG##
  print "\nDEBUG:traversing path '$path'\n";
  ##DEBUG##

  # will contain combined filesize of all files in pwd
  $totalSize = 0;

  # convert any backslashes to fwdslashes
  $path =~ s/\\/\//g;

  # open up the current dir
  opendir(PATH,$path);

  # check for trailing slash and remove if found
  if(substr($path,-1,1) eq "/") {chop($path)} 

  #read files & subdirs into @subdirs
  @subdirs = readdir(PATH);
  closedir(PATH);

  # loop through them all
  foreach $subdir (@subdirs)
  {
    # construct full pathname to current subdir or file
    $npath = $path."/".$subdir;

    # not a dir, just a file, perform a function
    # which returns the byte size of said file
    if(! -d $npath)
    {
      $totalSize += writeFile($npath);
    }
    # is a subdir
    else
    {
      # dont mess with cwd or parent dir
      if($npath ne "." && $npath ne "..")
      {
        ##DEBUG##
        print "\nDEBUG:npath='$npath'\n";
        ##DEBUG##

        # call new instance of self and pass as param
        # to other function which records total bytesize
        # of directory
        writeDir($npath,
          traversePath($npath)
        );
      }
    }
  }
  # return bytesize of any files found in current dir
  return $totalSize;
}

[download]
and heres the output when initially passed the path "f:/" (it falls into an infinite loop and repeats this endlessly): 
DEBUG:traversing path 'f:'

DEBUG:npath='f:/winnt'

[download]
does anyone see anything i'm not seeing? any help i would greatly appreciate.

In reply to recursive path function falls into infinite loop by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.