There's a few problems. The reason it is going into an infinite loop: there is nothing incrementing the $next_index variable. You increment while finding the first file small enough, but then never do again.

Another issue is that by the time you try to use the @files array, it is an array of file sizes, not file names. Fine to find a group of file sizes under a limit, but no way to actually access the file names to add them to the zip file.

Thirdly, you are pushing elements onto the end of an array, then using the first array element in calculations. You probably should use the element just pushed instead.

Update: Oh yeah, the splice length needs to be non zero also, or it won't modify the array.

Putzing around a bit... (note: I do not particularly recommend this, just fixed to be a working example. No guarantees about correct logic.)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use File::Find;
use File::Basename;
use File::stat;
use File::Slurp qw(read_dir);

my @directories = qw( /all_files_a /all_files_b);
my @files;

my $min_size = 1024; # bytes => 1K
my $max_size = 10485760; # bytes =>10MB

for my $d (@directories) {    
    push @files, { name => "d/$_", size => -s $_ } for  grep { -f && -
+s _ >= $min_size && -s _ <= $max_size && /\.pdf/} read_dir( $d, prefi
+x => 1 );
}

my $limit = 5_000_000;

#Create zip with $limit of files per zip
print "Creating zips...\n";
my $zip_number = 1;
my $total_size = 0;
my @other_group;
my $next_index = 0;

while(@files) {
    #Find biggest file that will fit
    $next_index++ while( ($next_index <= $#files) && ($total_size + $f
+iles[$next_index]->{size} > $limit) );
        
    #If there was a file that will fit, add it to @other_group        
    if($next_index <= $#files) {
          push @other_group, splice(@files, $next_index, 1);
          $total_size += $other_group[-1]->{size};
          $next_index++;
    }
    #Otherwise, zip this group, and start a new group
    else {
        # print this for testing, these files will be zipped in the $z
+ip_number.zip file
        foreach my $testfiles (@other_group) { 
             print $testfiles->{name}," - $zip_number.zip\n";
        }        
        
        #Clear this group info, and increment zip number
        @other_group = ();
        $total_size = 0;
        $zip_number++;
        $next_index = 0;
    }
}

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In reply to Re: Grouping files before zipping! by thundergnat
in thread Grouping files before zipping! by Anonymous Monk

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