System path

Hi folks,

I have the following problem: I want to convert a directory PDF->TXT using a third party .exe and using system in Perl.

sub open_directory_file_pdf
{

    my $Directory = File::Spec->canonpath( $mw->chooseDirectory() );
    my $shortpath = Win32::GetShortPathName( "$Directory" );
    chdir($shortpath) or die "$!";
    
    opendir (DIR, "$shortpath") or die "$!";
    my @files = grep {/.*?\.pdf/}  readdir DIR;

    foreach my $file (@files) {
        system ("files/pdftotext.exe -nopgbrk -q \"$file\"" );
    }
close DIR;
}
[download]

I get an error related to "system" -> "file" wrong written or not a command. What I am doing wrong?

PS: if I write

        system ("$file" );        
        system ("pdftotext.exe $file");
[download]

it works fine for opening $file with the standard pdf viewer but same error when it comes to accessing the .exe.....pdftotext.exe works on command line

Comment on System path Select or Download Code
Re: System path by Anonymous Monk on Apr 30, 2011 at 12:19 UTC
I get an error related to "system" -> "file" wrong written or not a command. What I am doing wrong? You're not copy-ing the error message and paste-ing it in `<c></c>` tags :)	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: System path by welle (Beadle) on Apr 30, 2011 at 12:31 UTC
just because it's German Dos... It says "file" is written wrong or the command doesn't exist Der Befehl "files" ist entweder falsch geschrieben oder konnte nicht gefunden werden	[reply]
Re^3: System path by Eliya (Priest) on Apr 30, 2011 at 12:53 UTC
As the error message suggests, it's attempting to execute a command named "files", so you could try a backslash (presuming the exe is in a subdirectory "files" — otherwise, what's the `files/` supposed to be doing?) `system ("files\\pdftotext.exe -nopgbrk -q \"$file\"" ); ^` [download] Not all components of Windows handle forward slashes and backslashes equivalently...	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: System path by Anonymous Monk on Apr 30, 2011 at 12:57 UTC
Re^4: System path by welle (Beadle) on Apr 30, 2011 at 13:10 UTC
Re^5: System path by Eliya (Priest) on Apr 30, 2011 at 13:19 UTC
Re^4: System path by welle (Beadle) on Apr 30, 2011 at 13:12 UTC
Re: System path by elef (Pilgrim) on Apr 30, 2011 at 18:49 UTC
As suggested previously, try "files\\pdftotext.exe". IIRC the windows console doesn't accept / in paths to executables (it does accept it in the path of a file to be opened, don't ask why). Anyway, this means you need to use \, and then you need to escape it with another \ for perl's sake.	[reply]


Think about Loose Coupling
	PerlMonks

System path

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