File::Listing

Section: User Contributed Perl Documentation (3)
Updated: 2021-01-27
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NAME

File::Listing - Parse directory listing

VERSION

version 6.14

SYNOPSIS

 use File::Listing qw(parse_dir);
 $ENV{LANG} = "C";  # dates in non-English locales not supported
 foreach my $file (parse_dir(`ls -l`)) {
     my ($name, $type, $size, $mtime, $mode) = @$file;
     next if $type ne 'f'; # plain file
     #...
 }
 
 # directory listing can also be read from a file
 open my $listing, "zcat ls-lR.gz|";
 $dir = parse_dir($listing, '+0000');

DESCRIPTION

This module exports a single function called "parse_dir", which can be used to parse directory listings.

FUNCTIONS

parse_dir

 my $dir = parse_dir( $listing );
 my $dir = parse_dir( $listing, $time_zone );
 my $dir = parse_dir( $listing, $time_zone, $type );
 my $dir = parse_dir( $listing, $time_zone, $type, $error );
 my @files = parse_dir( $listing );
 my @files = parse_dir( $listing, $time_zone );
 my @files = parse_dir( $listing, $time_zone, $type );
 my @files = parse_dir( $listing, $time_zone, $type, $error );

The first parameter ($listing) is the directory listing to parse. It can be a scalar, a reference to an array of directory lines or a glob representing a filehandle to read the directory listing from.

The second parameter ($time_zone) is the time zone to use when parsing time stamps in the listing. If this value is undefined, then the local time zone is assumed.

The third parameter ($type) is the type of listing to assume. Currently supported formats are 'unix', 'apache' and 'dosftp'. The default value is 'unix'. Ideally, the listing type should be determined automatically.

The fourth parameter ($error) specifies how unparseable lines should be treated. Values can be 'ignore', 'warn' or a code reference. Warn means that the perl warn() function will be called. If a code reference is passed, then this routine will be called and the return value from it will be incorporated in the listing. The default is 'ignore'.

Only the first parameter is mandatory.

 # list context
 foreach my $file (parse_dir($listing)) {
     my($name, $type, $size, $mtime, $mode) = @$file;
 }
 
 # scalar context
 my $dir = parse_dir($listing);
 foreach my $file (@$dir) {
     my($name, $type, $size, $mtime, $mode) = @$file;
 }

The return value from parse_dir() is a list of directory entries. In a scalar context the return value is a reference to the list. The directory entries are represented by an array consisting of:

name: The name of the file.
type: One of: "f" file, "d" directory, "l" symlink, "?" unknown.
size: The size of the file.
time: The number of seconds since January 1, 1970.
mode: Bitmask a la the mode returned by "stat".

AUTHOR

Original author: Gisle Aas

Current maintainer: Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org>

Contributors:

Adam Kennedy

Adam Sjogren

Alex Kapranoff

Alexey Tourbin

Andreas J. Koenig

Bill Mann

Bron Gondwana

DAVIDRW

Daniel Hedlund

David E. Wheeler

David Steinbrunner

Erik Esterer

FWILES

Father Chrysostomos

Gavin Peters

Graeme Thompson

Hans-H. Froehlich

Ian Kilgore

Jacob J

Mark Stosberg

Mike Schilli

Ondrej Hanak

Peter John Acklam

Peter Rabbitson

Robert Stone

Rolf Grossmann

Sean M. Burke

Simon Legner

Slaven Rezic

Spiros Denaxas

Steve Hay

Todd Lipcon

Tom Hukins

Tony Finch

Toru Yamaguchi

Ville Skyttä

Yuri Karaban

Zefram

amire80

jefflee

john9art

mschilli

murphy

phrstbrn

ruff

sasao

uid39246

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.