detecting links

[jsowers]

Is there any simple way to determine if a reference returned via readdir
is a soft- or hardlink rather than a directory or filename.
None of my perl books seem to show any way of telling.

Thanks

 

[Uri Guttman]

j> Thanks, but not quite the answer. readlink will return the name of
j> the directory/file which the link points to. I need something
j> equivalent to the '-d' to determine if an item is a directory.
j> Basically, I want to avoid following the link when walking a
j> directory tree.

perldoc -f -X

uri

 

[Tad McClellan]

Thanks, but not quite the answer.

Huh? It looks like the answer to me...

readlink will return the name of the
directory/file which
the link points to.

Or undef if it is not a symbolic link.

I need something equivalent to the '-d' to determine
if an item is a directory.

That is not the same question, and you already know the answer
to that question.

Basically, I want to avoid following the link when walking a directory
tree.

Select those that are not symbolic and are directories (untested):

my @dirs_not_links = grep { !readlink() and -d } @directories;

 

[Steve Grazzini]

Simply test for symlink _before_ testing for directoryness.

if (-l $item) {
(-d _) and print "Symlink to a directory\n";

^^^^
This will never be true.

(-f _) and print "Symlink to a file\n";
(-e _) or print "Broken symlink; target does not exist\n";

^^^^
And this will always be true.

You'll need to do a regular stat() inside the block -- otherwise
the special _ filehandle will refer to the results of the lstat()
and you know already that the *symlink* exists and is neither
file nor directory.