NAME

File::Tools - UNIX tools implemented as Perl Modules and made available to other platforms as well

SYNOPSIS

use File::Tools qw(:all);

my $str = cut {bytes => "3-7"}, "123456789";

WARNING

This is Alpha version of the module. Interface of the functions will change and some of the functions might even disappear.

REASON

Why this module?

When I am writing filesystem related applications I always need to load several standard modules such as File::Basename, Cwd, File::Copy, File::Path and maybe others in order to have all the relevant functions. I'd rather just use one module that will bring all the necessary functions.
On the other hand when I am in OOP mood I want all these functions to be methods of a shell-programming-object. (Though probably Pipe will answer this need better)
There are many useful commands available for the Unix Shell Programmer that usually need much more coding than the Unix counterpart, specifically most of the Unix commands can work recoursively on directory structures while in Perl one has to implement these. There are some additional modules providing this functionality but then we get back again to the previous issue.

The goal of this module is to make it even easier to write scripts in Perl that were traditionally easier to write in Shell.

Partially we will provide functions similar to existing UNIX commands and partially we will provide explanation on how to rewrite various Shell constructs in Perl.

DESCRIPTION

awk

Not implemented.

basename

Given a path to a file or directory returns the last part of the path.

See File::Basename for details.

cat

Not implemented.

See slurp

To process all the files on the command line and print them to the screen.

while (my $line = <>) {
  print $line;
}

In shell cut is usually used to concatenate two or more files. That can be achived with the previous code redirecting it to a file using > command line redirector.

catfile

Concatenating parts of a path in a platform independent way. See also File::Spec

cd

Use the built in chdir function.

chmod

Use the built in chmod function.

chown

For now use the built in chown function.

It accepts only UID and GID values, but it is easy to retreive them:

chown $uid, $gid, @files;
chown getpwnam($user), getgrname($group), @files;

For recursive application use the find function.

find( sub {chown $uid, $gid, $_}, @dirs);

Windows: See chmod above.

cmp

See compare

compare

Compare two files See File::Compare for details.

compress

Not implemented.

See some of the external modules

copy

Copy one file to another name.

For details see File::Copy

For now this does not provide recourseive copy. Later we will provide that too using either one of these modules: File::NCopy or File::Copy::Recursive.

cut

Partially implemented but probably will be removed.

Returns some of the fields of a given string (or strings). As a UNIX command it can work on every line on STDIN or in a list of files. When implementing it in Perl the most difficult part is to parse the parameters in order to account for all the overlapping possibilities which should actually be considered as user error.

cut -b 1 file
cut -b 3,7 file
cut -b 3-7 file
cut -b -4,7-
order within the parameter string does not matter

The same can be done in Perl for any single range: substr $str, $start, $length;

cp

See copy instead.

cwd

Returns the current working directory similar to the pwd UNIX command.

See Cwd for details.

date

Can be used to display time in the same formats the date command would do.

See POSIX::strftime for details.

df

Not implemented.

See Filesys::DiskSpace

diff

Not implemented.

See Text::Diff for a possible implementation.

dirname

Given a path to a file or a directory this function returns the directory part. (the whole string excpet the last part)

See File::Basename for details.

dirs

Not implemented.

dos2unix

Not implemented.

du

Not implemented.

Filesys::DiskUsage

echo

Not implemented.

The print function in Perl prints to the screen (STDOUT or STDERR).

If the given string is in double quotes "" the backslash-escaped characters take effect (-e mode).

Within single quotes '', they don't have an effect.

For printing new-line include \n withn the double quotes.

ed - editor

Not implemented.

expr

Not implemented.

In Perl there is no need to use a special function to evaluate an expression.

match
substr - built in substr
index - built in index
length - built in length

file

Not implemented.

fileparse

This is not a UNIX command but it is provided by the same standard File::Basename we already use.

find

See File::Find for details.

ftp

See Net::FTP

move

Move a file from one directory to any other directory with any name.

One can use the built in rename function but it only works on the same filesystem.

See File::Copy for details.

getopts

Not implemented.

See Getops::Std and Getops::Long for possible implementations we will use here.

grep

Not implemented.

A basic implementation of grep in Perl would be the following code:

my $p = shift;
while (<>) {
  print if /$p/
}

but within real code we are going to be more interested doing such operation on a list of values (possibly file lines) already in memory in an array or piped in from an external file. For this one can use the grep build in function.

@selected = grep /REGEX/, @original;

TODO: See also File::Grep

gzip

Not implemented.

head

Not implemented.

id

Normally the id command shows the current username, userid, group and gid. In Perl one can access the current ireal UID as $< and the effective UID as $>. The real GID is $( and the effective GID is $) of the current user.

To get the username and the group name use the getpwuid($uid) and getpwgrid($gid) functions respectively in scalar context.

kill

See built in kill function.

less

Not implemented.

This is used in interactive mode only. No need to provide this functionality here.

ln

Not implemented.

See the build in link and symlink functions.

ls

Not implemented.

See glob and the opendir/readdir pair for listing filenames use stat and lstat to retreive information needed for the -l display mode of ls.

mail

Sending e-mails.

See Mail::Sendmail and Net::SMTP

mkdir

Not implemented.

See the built in mkdir function.

mkpath

Create a directory with all its parent directories. See File::Path for details.

Not implemented.

This is used in interactive mode only. No need to provide this functionality here.

mv

See move instead.

paste

Not implemented.

patch

Not implemented.

ping

See Net::Ping

popd

Change directory to last place where pushd was called.

pushd

Change directory and save the current directory in a stack. See also popd.

printf

Not implemented.

See the build in printf function.

ps

Not implemented.

pwd

See cwd instead.

read

Not implemented.

read x y z

will read in a line from the keyboard (STDIN) and put the first word into x, the second word in y and the third word in z

In perl one can implement similar behavior by the following code:

my ($x, $y, $z) = split /\s+/, <STDIN>;

rm

Not implemented.

For removing files, see the built in unlink function.

For removing directories see the built in rmdir function.

For removing trees (rm -r) see rmtree

rmdir

Not implemented.

For removing empty directories use the built in rmdir function.

For removing tree see rmtree

rmtree

Removes a whole directory tree. Similar to rm -rf. See also File::Path

scp

sed

Not implemented.

slurp

snmp

Net::SNMP

ssh

Net::SSH

shift

Not implemented.

sort

Not implemented.

See the built in sort function.

tail

Not implemented.

Return the last n lines of a file, n defaults to 10

tar

Not implemented.

See Archive::Tar

telnet

Net::Telnet

time

touch

Not implemented.

tr

Not implemented.

See the built in tr function.

umask

Not implemented.

uniq

The uniq unix command eliminates duplicate values following each other but does not enforce uniqueness through the whole input. For examle for the following list of input values: a a a b a a a ths UNIX uniq would return a b a

For completeness we also provide uniqunix that behaves just like the UNIX command.

uniqunix

Similar to the UNIX uniq command.

unix2dos

Not implemented.

wc

Not implemented.

who

Not implemented.

who am i

Not implemented.

zip

Not implemented.

redirections and pipe

< > < |

Ctr-Z, & fg, bg set %ENV

Arguments

$#, $*, $1, $2, ...

$$ - is also available in Perl as $$

Other

$? error code of last command

if test ... string operators

Development

The Subversion repository is here: http://svn1.hostlocal.com/szabgab/trunk/File-Tools/

TODO

File::Basename::fileparse_set_fstype File::Compare::compare_text File::Compare::cmp File::Copy::syscopy File::Find File::Spec File::Temp

AUTHOR

Gabor Szabo <gabor@pti.co.il>

Copyright

LICENSE

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

See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html

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