http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=177830


in reply to backfiles

No CPAN modules? This version tars and gzips and allows the user to override a lot of default names. Instead of placing all arguments in another file, this one accepts long style arguments. Since the number of files to archive could be large, it does accept a textfile containing the list of files to archive.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Archive::Tar; use Getopt::Long; use Pod::Usage; use vars qw($base $dir $name $comp $list @file $debug $help); GetOptions( 'base=s' => \$base, 'dir=s' => \$dir, 'name=s' => \$name, 'comp=s' => \$comp, 'list=s' => \$list, 'file=s' => \@file, 'debug!' => \$debug, 'help|?' => \$help, ); pod2usage(-verbose=>1) if $help; pod2usage(-verbose=>2) unless $name and $list or @file; $base ||= '.'; $comp ||= 9; $dir = (localtime)[7]; print "BaseDIR: $base\n" if $debug; die "$base is not a directory" unless -d $base; if ($list) { open FH,'<',$list or die "couldn't open $list: $!"; chomp(@file = <FH>); } my $tardir = "$base/$dir"; print "archive is $tardir/$name\n" if $debug; print "files are @file\n" if $debug; if (-d "$tardir") { print "$tardir already exists\n" if $debug; } else { mkdir "$tardir", 0740 or die "cannot mkdir $tardir"; print "created $tardir\n" if $debug; } my $tar = Archive::Tar->create_archive("$tardir/$name",$comp,@file); __END__ =head1 NAME backup.pl -- backup files listed in text file or command line =head1 SYNOPSIS backup.pl -list|-file [-dir -name -args -debug -help] Options: -name required - name of tar file: -file required - specify files to archive or ... -list text file containing list of files to srchive -base dir to store tar directory: default is . -dir dir to store tar file: day of year is default -comp compression level: default is 9 -debug prints debugging messages -help this message Examples: backup.pl -list=backlist.txt -name=foo.tar backup.pl -file=foo.txt -file=bar.txt -name=foo.tar =cut