checking if file is empty or not

[damian]

hi fella monks, how will i know with perl if a file is empty or not. newbie

[tilly]

if (-s $filename) {
    # The file is not empty
}

For more handy file-tests type perldoc perlfunc and search for "test". (For most people that means type "/test" and hit return.)

[ColtsFoot]

You can use stat 'Filemane' this returns a 13 element list giving the statistics
for the file "Filename" so

    @res = stat "file_to_stat";
    print qq($res[7]\n);

will return the size of the file in bytes, the other elements of the list are as follows

    dev - Device number
    ino - Inode number
    mode - File node (type and permissions)
    nlink - No of hard links
    uid - File owner
    gid - Group Id
    rdev - Device identifier
    size - size in bytes
    atime - access time
    mtime - modified time
    ctime - Inode change time
    blksize - Prefered block size
    blocks - actual number of blocks allocated

Note: Not all fields are supported bt all OSs.
Hope this is of help

[lolindrath]

hmm, this works but is probably inefficient.

open FILE, "Filename" || die;
@file = <FILE>;
close FILE;
$file = join( "", @file);
if ( $file ne "" )
{
    #there's something there!
}


Just thought I'd pose another solution

--=Lolindrath=--

[buzzcutbuddha]

There are file operators out there that will test the size and/or if it's an empty file already created, and there is no need to create a new way to do it.
It's good to know that you are thinking, and I am happy that you are willing to participate, but there is a reason why laziness is a virtue. :)

Cheers!