change the directory and grab the xml file to parse certain data in perl - perl

Question

I am trying to parse specific XML file which is located in sub directories of one directory. For some reason i am getting error saying file does not exists. if the file does not exist it should move on to next sub directory.
HERE IS MY CODE
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
use XML::Simple;
my #xmlsearch = map { chomp; $_ } `ls`;
foreach my $directory (#xmlsearch) {
print "$directory \n";
chdir($directory) or die "Couldn't change to [$directory]: $!";
my #findResults = `find -name education.xml`;
foreach my $educationresults (#findResults){
print $educationresults;
my $parser = new XML::Simple;
my $data = $parser->XMLin($educationresults);
print Dumper($data);
chdir('..');
}
}
ERROR
music/gitar/education.xml
File does not exist: ./music/gitar/education.xml

Answer 1

Using chdir the way you did makes the code IMO less readable. You can use File::Find for that:
use autodie;
use File::Find;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
sub findxml {
my #found;
opendir(DIR, '.');
my #where = grep { -d && m#^[^.]+$# } readdir(DIR);
closedir(DIR);
File::Find::find({wanted => sub {
push #found, $File::Find::name if m#^education\.xml$#s && -f _;
} }, #where);
return #found;
}
foreach my $xml (findxml()){
say $xml;
print Dumper XMLin($xml);
}

Answer 2

Whenever you find yourself relying on backticks to execute shell commands, you should consider whether there is a proper perl way to do it. In this case, there is.
ls can be replaced with <*>, which is a simple glob. The line:
my #array = map { chomp; $_ } `ls`;
Is just a roundabout way of saying
chomp(my #array = `ls`); # chomp takes list arguments as well
But of course the proper way is
my #array = <*>; # no chomp required
Now, the simple solution to all of this is simply to do
for my $xml (<*/education.xml>) { # find the xml files in dir 1 level up
Which will cover one level of directories, with no recursion. For full recursion, use File::Find:
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Find;
my #list;
find( sub { push #list, $File::Find::name if /^education\.xml$/i; }, ".");
for (#list) {
# do stuff
# #list contains full path names of education.xml files found in subdirs
# e.g. ./music/gitar/education.xml
}
You should note that changing directories is not required, and in my experience, not worth the trouble. Instead of doing:
chdir($somedir);
my $data = XMLin($somefile);
chdir("..");
Simply do:
my $data = XMLin("$somedir/$somefile");