I have just started to learn Perl, but I had a task come up that couldn't wait for my slow progress through Programming Perl, 3rd ed. This script renames files in a specified directory. It seems to work OK, but I am wondering if it could be better. By better, I mean more robust against user error, better form, with readability and maintainability being priorities. Also, I am wondering if my approach is being warped by my years of Microsoft-based development. In other words, is this thing Perlesque? The script is posted below.
Thanks in advance, -- Barry C. Hawkins Systems Consultant All Things Computed 404-795-9147 voice/fax http://www.allthingscomputed.com
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Filename: rename_files.pl # # Create Date: 07/10/2003 # # Author: Barry C. Hawkins # # Description: The purpose of this script is to # rename several hundred files with hard-coded # version number suffixes using a regular expression # substitution operation. The suffix convention # is -[major]-[minor], i.e. -1-0, and immediately # precedes the filename extension.
use strict;
# Prompt user for input
print "Please enter the directory containing the files to be renamed.\n"
. "(NOTE: Use forward slashes even on Windows, i.e. C:/temp): ";# Remove trailing newline chomp(my $working_dir = <STDIN>);
# Open the specified directory opendir(DIR, $working_dir) or die "Could not open DIR; $!\n";
# Read the directory contents into an array
# grep is being used to omit the . and .. entries
my @files = grep{ not /^\.{1,2}\z/ } readdir DIR;# Iterate through the array, processing each filename.
foreach(@files) {
# Generate the new filename string
(my $new_name = $_) =~ s/-[0-9]-[0-9]//;
# Print a line showing the new and old filenames
print "$_\t $new_name\n";
# Rename the current file
rename $working_dir . "/" . $_, $working_dir . "/" . $new_name or
die "Could not rename $working_dir/" . "$_: $!";
}# Release the filehandle close DIR;
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