execute shell commands from perl script - perl

I want to rename *.DIF files to *.SUC files
But the following script is giving "sh: bad substitution" error
I cannot use "rename" becuase my OS is not Linux.
$com="for i in *.DIF; do mv \$i \${i/DIF/SUC}; done;";
print $com."\n";
print `$com`;
Output :
for i in *.DIF; do mv $i ${i/DIF/SUC}; done;
sh: bad substitution

If you are having problems with Perl's rename, use File::Copy, a platform-independent module for moving and copying files. It is a core module, so it should be already part of your Perl installation.
If the system command works when you enter it in the shell, but not in Perl, the most likely reason is that Perl isn't using the shell you expect. We would need more information about your system to be sure, though.

There's no need to shell out for file operations that you can easily do within Perl.
The following renames all of your .dif extension files as .suc.
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Copy qw(move);
move($_, s/dif$/suc/r) for glob('*.dif');

be default perl was using sh, instead of bash, which allows {//}
this question helped.
Finally I used :
open my $bash_handle, '| bash' or die "Cannot open bash: $!";
print $bash_handle 'for i in *.SUC; do mv $i ${i/SUC/DIF}; done;';

Related

Unable to execute perl script in cmd without invoking perl.exe

I am trying to execute a perl script to delete file1.txt in a directory.
When I execute the perl script using command prompt, I faced an error : Use of uninitialized value in chdir at C:/Debug/test.pl line 7.
Example:
C:\Debug>test.pl C:\Debug
However if I invoke perl in front of test.pl, the perl script is executed successfully and file1.txt was deleted.
Example:
C:\Debug>perl test.pl C:\Debug
Please find test.pl code as follow:
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Copy;
my ($working_dir) = #ARGV;
chdir $working_dir or die "Can't change directory$!";
unlink "file1.txt";
I have mks_toolkit v8.7.5 with perl.exe installed. The .pl extension is associated with "C:\Program Files (x86)\MKS Toolkit\mksnt\perl.exe" "%1" %*.
I have no problem execute hello.pl (Hello World) without invoking perl in front of it.
Example:
C:\Debug>hello.pl
Anyway, users who face this problem can try to check the properties of your file, make sure the file is not read only and has full admin access.

How to read a .conf file in Perl

I just created a text test.conf file with some information. How can I read it on Perl?
I am new to Perl and I am not sue would will I need to do.
I tried the following:
C:\Perl\Perl_Project>perl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
open (MYFILE, 'test.conf');
while (<MYFILE>)
{ chomp; print "$_\n"; }
close (MYFILE);
I tried installing Perl on my laptop that has Windows 7 OS, and using command line.
Instead of using command line, write your program in a file (you can use any editor to write your program, I would suggest use Notepad++) and save as myprogram.pl in the same directory where you have your .conf file.
use warnings;
use strict;
open my $fh, "<", "test.conf" or die $!;
while (<$fh>)
{
chomp;
print "$_\n";
}
close $fh;
Now open a command prompt and go to the same path where you have your both file myprogram.pl and test.conf file and execute your program by typing this:
perl myprogram.pl
You can give full path of your input file inside program and can run your program from any path from command prompt by giving full path of your program:
perl path\to\myprogram.pl
Side note: Always use use warnings; and use strict; at the top of your program and to open file always use lexical filehandle with three arguments with error handling.
This is an extended comment more than an answer, as I believe #serenesat has given you everything you need to execute your program.
When you do "command line" Perl, it's typically stuff that is relatively brief or trivial, such as:
perl -e "print 2 ** 16"
Anything that goes beyond a few lines, and you're probably better off putting that in a file and having Perl run the file. You certainly can put larger programs on the command line, but when it comes to going back in and editing lines, it becomes more of a hassle than a shortcut.
Also, for what it's worth the -n and -p parameters allow you to process the contents of a stream, meaning you could do something like this:
perl -ne "print if /oracle/i" test.conf

Perl using system to extract tar

I am trying to extract a directory with tar files, but it doesn't seem to work correctly .
The command works in command line, but not with the "system" in perl. I really need this to work in perl.
$tar_dir = "/root/updates/*.tar.bz2";
system ("for i in $tar_dir ; do tar xvfj $i; done");
Works on command line like this : for i in *.bz2 ; do tar xvfj $i; done
Am i missing something ?
Thanks
Or, you could move the loop into the Perl code:
use warnings;
use strict;
for (glob '/root/updates/*.tar.bz2') {
system "tar xvfj $_";
}
Yes, you forgot to escape $i in the string in perl.
Try:
system ("for i in $tar_dir ; do tar xvfj \$i; done");
If you don't escape it, then it will get expanded just like $tar_dir. Make sure you have use strict; and use warnings; at the top of your perl script, it will help a bit with this sort of thing (if $i wasn't defined in the perl script in this case, you'd have got a message from perl telling you about the problem.)

How to delete a bunch of lines in perl (adapting a known one-liner)?

context: I'm a beginner in Perl and struggling, please be patient, thanks.
the question: there is a one-liner that seems to do the job I want (in a cygwin console it does fine on my test file). So now I would need to turn it into a script, but I can't manage that unfortunately.
The one-liner in question is provided in the answer by Aki here Delete lines in perl
perl -ne 'print unless /HELLO/../GOODBYE/' <file_name>
Namely I would like to have a script that opens my file "test.dat" and removes the lines between some strings HELLO and GOODBYE. Here is what I tried and which fails (the path is fine for cygwin):
#!/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
open (THEFILE, "+<test.dat") || die "error opening";
my $line;
while ($line =<THEFILE>){
next if /hello/../goodbye/;
print THEFILE $line;
}
close (THEFILE);
Many thanks in advance!
Your one-liner is equivalent to the following
while (<>) {
print unless /HELLO/../GOODBYE/;
}
Your code does something quite different. You should not attempt to read and write to the same file handle, that usually does not do what you think. When you want to quickly edit a file, you can use the -i "in-place edit" switch:
perl -ni -e 'print unless /HELLO/../GOODBYE/' file
Do note that changes to the file are irreversible, so you should make backups. You can use the backup option for that switch, e.g. -i.bak, but be aware that it is not flawless, as running the same command twice will still overwrite your backup (by saving to the same file name twice).
The simplest and safest way to do it, IMO, is to simply use shell redirection
perl script.pl file.txt > newfile.txt
While using the script file I showed at the top.

Unix commands in Perl?

I'm very new to Perl, and I would like to make a program that creates a directory and moves a file into that directory using the Unix command like:
mkdir test
Which I know would make a directory called "test". From there I would like to give more options like:
mv *.jpg test
That would move all .jpg files into my new directory.
So far I have this:
#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Folder Name:";
$fileName = <STDIN>;
chomp($fileType);
$result=`mkdir $fileName`;
print"Your folder was created \n";
Can anyone help me out with this?
Try doing this :
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict; use warnings;
print "Folder Name:";
$dirName = <STDIN>;
chomp($dirName);
mkdir($dirName) && print "Your folder was created \n";
rename $_, "$dirName/$_" for <*.jpg>;
You will have a better control when using built-in perl functions than using Unix commands. That's the point of my snippet.
Most (if not all) Unix commands have a corresponding version as a function
e.g
mkdir - see here
mv - See here
Etc. either get a print out of the various manual pages (or probably have a trip down to the book shop - O'Reilly nut shell book is quite good along with others).
In perl you can use bash commands in backticks. However, what happens when the directory isn't created by the mkdir command? Your program doesn't get notified of this and continues on its merry way thinking that everything is fine.
You should use built in command in perl that do the same thing.
http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/mkdir.html
http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/rename.html
It is much easier to trap errors with those functions and fail gracefully. In addition, they run faster because you don't have to fork a new process for each command you run.
Perl has some functions similar to those of the shell. You can just use
mkdir $filename;
You can use backquotes to run a shell command, but it is only usefull if the command returns anything to its standard output, which mkdir does not. For commands without output, use system:
0 == system "mv *.jpg $folder" or die "Cannot move: $?";