Re: Re: Favourite modules April 2003

[barbie]

File::Spec -- portability, damn I like it

Except when it makes your life hell due to incompatability with other modules, as you have to regex everything into Unix style to get modules like File::Basename to work with it. Or try using with a file upload from an OS that isn't the same as the server. As a consequence I now avoid it like the plague.

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Barbie
Birmingham Perl Mongers
Web Site: http://birmingham.pm.org/
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[zby]

Could you add some more information about the incompatabillity prolem? I thought File::Spec was the way to go and I use it in one of my projects.

[PodMaster]

The trouble you seem to be having is because you haven't read the fileparse_set_fstype portion of the File::Basename docs. Anyway, I know its been a year since you wrote this, but I finally wrote fileparse (just for completeness) and thought I'd share.

sub File::Spec::dirname {
    my $self = shift;
    return $self->catpath( ( $self->splitpath(shift) )[ 0, 1 ] );
}

sub File::Spec::basename {
    my $self = shift;
    my $name = shift;
    return ($self->fileparse($name, map("\Q$_\E",@_)))[0];
}

sub File::Spec::fileparse {
    my $self = shift;
    my( $suffix, $path, $name ) = $self->splitpath(shift);
    $path = $self->catpath( $suffix, $path, '' );

    for my $s(@_){
        $self =~ s/($s)$//i and last;
    }

    $suffix = $1 ? $1 : undef;
    wantarray ? ( $name, $path, $suffix ) : $name;
}

Check out file.spec.basename.txt to test the above with the File::Basename test suite.

[kwilliams]

Maybe you'd like Path::Class better. I sure do, and I hope it isn't just because I wrote it. -Ken

[barbie]

This only hides File::Spec underneath the covers. I expect I'd still encounter the same problems as I did before, as it will still stringify to the OS you're on. As I use Windows mostly, it doesn't integrate with Find::Find and others without some meddling.

I have most problems with code written by others who aren't aware of the problems. Whether they use File::Spec or Path::Class, I don't see any difference between the return values being Windows style and then breaking when used directly in Find::Find or File::Basename. For them to work correctly you'll need to have:

$file->as_foreign('Unix')

all over the place, which kind of defeats the object of using Path::Class in the first place :(