http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=827245

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi,

Let's say I am traversing a directory:

/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82468
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82480
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82485
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82490
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82767
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82802
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test

[download]
I need to isolate the terminal directory path (in this case, 82468, 82480, 82485, etc) because they are ids that I need to insert into xml documents. I've been looking at the various file modules in cpan, but I can't figure out what to use. Maybe File::Spec? Any examples would be much appreciated.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: capturing terminal directory relative path?
by liverpole (Monsignor) on Mar 07, 2010 at 16:09 UTC
    What you probably want is File::Basename.  It's in the core already (ie. no need to install it).

    Try: 

    use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Basename;

my $base = basename("/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82802");

# Note that $base is now '82802'

    [download]
    s''(q.S:$/9=(T1';s;(..)(..);$..=substr+crypt($1,$2),2,3;eg;print$..$/
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[d/l]
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Re: capturing name of deepest directory in a tree structure.
by Corion (Patriarch) on Mar 07, 2010 at 17:17 UTC

    sort your strings, and then compare them using index. Potentially split them into their parts:

    /home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82468
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82480

    [download]
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: capturing terminal directory relative path?
by bichonfrise74 (Vicar) on Mar 07, 2010 at 16:46 UTC
    I agree that File::Basename is the robust way to do what you need. But maybe the below code is something you might want to consider as well. 
    #!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

while (<DATA>) {
    print + (split( /\// ))[-1] if /\d+/;
}

__DATA__
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82468
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82480
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82485
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82490
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82767
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test/82802
/home/BORK/work/test-backfills/cp_test

    [download]
[reply]
[d/l]

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