Avoiding making a directory that already exists

[Anonymous Monk]

mkdir "$directory/$month/$day", 0755;

what's a better way to write this so that every time I run the script it isn't trying to create a directory that's already there..... I have this code in a subroutine. I was thinking maybe a if (-e ....... help?

[scain]

Well, you haven't given us much to go on, but it sounds like you have the right idea:

my $newdir = "$directory\/$month\/$day"
if (!(-e $newdir)) {
 mkdir $newdir, 0755 or die "couldn't mkdir $newdir because: $!\n";
}

Scott

updated per tilly's suggestion.

[tilly]

Please add $! to the error check. Very often knowing what the operating system thinks is wrong can make your life much, much easier...

[VSarkiss]

I think you were thinking right. Probably the simplest is:

mkdir("$directory/$month/$day", 0755)
    unless -d "$directory/$month/$day";

Take a look at the docs on filetest operators.

HTH

[Anonymous Monk]

this is what I needed :) thx

[Rudif]

Actually, mkpath does the testing for you and will not try to create a directory that is already there. I would not bother to test.
From Path.pm:

sub mkpath {
    my($paths, $verbose, $mode) = @_;
    ...
    foreach $path (@$paths) {
    ...
    next if -d $path;
        ...
    my $parent = File::Basename::dirname($path);
    unless (-d $parent or $path eq $parent) {
        push(@created,mkpath($parent, $verbose, $mode));
     }
        ...

Rudif