We do this sort of thing a lot at work for surveys that need to be in text format so the various peopel that want to read them can.

However, we occassional delete files as well that were either tests, or smart-@$$ responces. So to keep track of the files that have been deleted i load the directory, knock off the "." and ".." files and iterate through looking for the first avialable slot.

foreach (@files) {
if ($_ == $last+1) {
open( ... );
}
$last = $_;
}


thats minus error checking, etc .. but its the jist of it.

just make sure you check for race conditions (as mentioned above), and iterate to the next one if needed.

Mbond.

In reply to Re: sequencial file naming by mbond
in thread sequencial file naming 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.