Archive::Zip[ing] a very active directory

[brooklynBen]

I've been using a server side script for about 5 years now. The idea is to mirror the contents of the requested directory. These directories are very, very active; at any time files are being created, modified, deleted and renamed. I can have as few as a dozen to as many as fifty-thousand files. At any moment in time I cannot predict what if anything will happen much less to which file(s) it will happen to.

This whole process works 98% of the time except for when (I think) a file is renamed between the time I call $zip->addFile and then $zip->writeToFileNamed. The program dies.

I'm not all that concern that I get a perfect mirror it's just supposed to be a snapshot so if my mirror leaves out a file or two it won't matter a whole lot. Is there a way to tell Archive to skip a file if it no longer exists?

use Archive::Zip qw( :ERROR_CODES );

    my $zip = Archive::Zip->new();

    opendir(DataDir, ".");

    foreach (readdir(DataDir))
    {
        if( -e $_ and $_ ne "." and $_ ne "..")
        {
            $member = $zip->addFile($_);
            $member->desiredCompressionLevel( 1 );
        }
    }

    $zip->writeToFileNamed("myFile.zip");

Edit: I forgot to mention that I'm running this on a Windows Server 2003 with ActivePerl

[jfroebe]

Check out Shadow Volumes - part of windows XP and higher. They will create a snapshot where you can backup the files you need.

[Marshall]

The link above didn't work for me, but Wiki - Shadow Copy has a pretty good description to get started. Should work on Win 2003 server. These things can have some significant performance issues - so ymmy.