moving from mac to PC

[flieckster]

Hey there, simple question but why can't i chdir on PC like i do mac? this throws out errors Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at C:\Users\bflieck\Desktop \script.pl line 12. Press any key to continue . . .

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use File::Find;
use File::Copy;
use Net::SMTP;
use File::Basename;
use File::Slurp;
use POSIX qw(strftime);
my $date = strftime("%m-%d-%y",localtime);
my $time = strftime("%I:%M:%S",localtime);

my $findme = '\photorepos\Perl\Mother\WorkLoad\';
chdir($findme) or warn "$!";

[Your Mother]

This is the error on that code my Mac–

Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at - line 10.

In your $findme you have \';. Take the backslash out; it is escaping the quote. Also, use slashes, not backslashes. WIN understands both and everyone else uses the former.

[AnomalousMonk]

... use slashes, not backslashes. WIN understand both ...

... except on the command line or with respect to anything handled by the command line interpreter (just for the sake of consistency):

c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $path = '/@Work/Perl/monks/yngwi';
 my @dirs = `dir $path`;
 print qq{@dirs};
"
Invalid switch - "@Work".

c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $path = '\@Work\Perl\monks\yngwi';
 my @dirs = `dir $path`;
 print qq{@dirs};
"
 Volume in drive C is Acer
  Volume Serial Number is 9480-355B

  Directory of c:\@Work\Perl\monks\yngwi

 04/02/2011  05:51 PM    <DIR>          .
 04/02/2011  05:51 PM    <DIR>          ..
 04/02/2011  06:18 PM             2,255 detect_class_method_1.pl
                1 File(s)          2,255 bytes
                2 Dir(s)  64,490,688,512 bytes free

(This is under Win 7.)

[afoken]

... use slashes, not backslashes. WIN understand both ...

... except on the command line or with respect to anything handled by the command line interpreter

The only real problem is the command interpreter. But if you use the command interpreter, your code is already far from being portable.

How external programs handle command line arguments depends on the individual program. Most programs with a DOS legacy treat the forward slash as switch introducing character, as do many programs written for Windows. But programs from other platforms have no problems with forward slashes in file names on the command line.

Alexander

[haukex]

Hi flieckster,

For portable filename handling, I recommend the core module File::Spec, or from CPAN Path::Class:

use Data::Dumper;
$Data::Dumper::Useqq=1;
$Data::Dumper::Terse=1;

use File::Spec::Functions qw/catdir catpath/;

print Dumper( catdir('','photorepos','Perl','Mother','WorkLoad') );
# the following volume spec is ignored in *NIX
print Dumper( catpath('C:',
    catdir('','photorepos','Perl','Mother','WorkLoad')) );

use Path::Class qw/file dir/;

print Dumper( dir('C:\\')->subdir('photorepos')->subdir('Perl')
    ->subdir('Mother')->subdir('WorkLoad').'' );

my $dir = dir('C:\\','photorepos','Perl','Mother','WorkLoad');
print "Path: ", Dumper( "$dir" );
print $dir->is_absolute ? "Is Absolute\n" : "Is Relative\n";
print "Volume: ", $dir->volume, "\n";
print "Dir List: ",Dumper( [$dir->dir_list] );

I admit I haven't worked with volume specs in either module, and I don't have a Windows machine handy at this moment, so the above may need some tweaking in that respect.

Update 2016-10-29: I tested this on a Windows machine and apparently, in File::Spec, the volume argument to catpath needs to be 'C:', not just 'C', while in Path::Class, the volume needs to be specified as 'C:\\' for things to work properly (unfortunately it seems neither of these points are mentioned in the docs). I updated the above code accordingly and added some more output. The Path::Class code does not work the same under Linux as under Windows: since in Linux "C:\" is a valid name for a directory, that path component is treated like just another regular directory. Here are the outputs:

# Windows
"\\photorepos\\Perl\\Mother\\WorkLoad"
"C:\\photorepos\\Perl\\Mother\\WorkLoad"
"C:\\photorepos\\Perl\\Mother\\WorkLoad"
Path: "C:\\photorepos\\Perl\\Mother\\WorkLoad"
Is Absolute
Volume: C:
Dir List: ["", "photorepos", "Perl", "Mother", "WorkLoad"]

# Linux
"/photorepos/Perl/Mother/WorkLoad"
"/photorepos/Perl/Mother/WorkLoad"
"C:\\/photorepos/Perl/Mother/WorkLoad"
Path: "C:\\/photorepos/Perl/Mother/WorkLoad"
Is Relative
Volume: 
Dir List: ["C:\\", "photorepos", "Perl", "Mother", "WorkLoad"]

Hope this helps,
-- Hauke D

[Your Mother]

Give Path::Tiny a look. I was a fan of Path::Class from its first releases but I think PT is quite a bit better.

[haukex]

Hi Your Mother,

I've read many good things about Path::Tiny but haven't had the chance to really use it. One thing that held me back a little from switching from ::Class to ::Tiny is that Path::Class uses File::Spec internally, while Path::Tiny apparently does not (or only partially) - its doc says:

Path::Tiny does not try to work for anything except Unix-like and Win32 platforms. Even then, it might break if you try something particularly obscure or tortuous. ... All paths are forced to have Unix-style forward slashes.

So at the moment it feels a little safer and more portable to stick with Path::Class - not a particularly good reason, I know :-) So I'll definitely try out Path::Tiny when I get the chance.

Thanks,
-- Hauke D

[Laurent_R]

In addition to the backslash issue mentioned above, your $findme path probably does not make sense on a PC running Windows.