Filehandles and dirhandles are global, so each time this sub is called, DIR is closed and re-opened on a new directory. To avoid that, pass a scalar to opendir() instead of a literal name. When a scalar is passed as the first parameter to open() or opendir(), it is used as the name of the filehandle/dirhandle to open. Likewise with readdir(), <>, read() and other functions that take filehandle/dirhandle parameters.
my $dh = $startDir; $dh =~ s/\W/_/g; # Transform all non-alphanumerics to _
opendir $dh, $startDir || die $!;
while (my $entry = readdir($dh)) {
Actually, it is easier than this, see:
<http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.8.0/pod/perlfaq5.html#How-can-I-make-a-filehandle-local-to-a-subroutine---How-do-I-pass-filehandles-between-subroutines---How-do-I-make-an-array-of-filehandles->
"As of perl5.6, open() autovivifies file and directory handles as references if you pass it an uninitialized scalar variable ".
Which means, all you do is this:
my $dh;
opendir $dh, $startDir || die $!;
while (my $entry = readdir($dh)) {So just us a "my" local scalar variable set to undef before the opendir call.
Enjoy, Peter.
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