Foreign characters in file name - can't open()

[P]

Hi,

I use File::Find to go through some directories and grab
files with a .log extension. I then open() each of these logs
and do some processing on them. The mechanism itself works as
expected, but I run into trouble when a log's file name has
foreign characters in it (like German umlauts, for example).
So in this snippet:


find ( \&process(), '/starting/path' );

sub process {
return unless /\.log$/;

open ( LOG, $_ ) or die $!;

# go on to process file
}


open() refuses to open files with umaluts in the name (claiming
"File not found", even though the file is present).

I thought that "use utf8" might solve the problem, but it
seems that it's used to allow foreign characters in the _script_,
but it has no effect whatsoever on the script's _input_. Can
someone please suggest how to get my script to read those pesky
foreign character files?


Thank you.

 

[D. Marxsen]

I use File::Find to go through some directories and grab
files with a .log extension. I then open() each of these logs
and do some processing on them. The mechanism itself works as
expected, but I run into trouble when a log's file name has
foreign characters in it (like German umlauts, for example). ....
open() refuses to open files with umaluts in the name (claiming
"File not found", even though the file is present).

Well, I don't use File::Find but use an own construct shown below. Just set
$direc (e. g. "d:\copy\") and $recursive (e. g. 0) appropriately.

use English;
use strict;

sub collect
{
my $direc = $ARG[0];

my $fullname; # File name including path
my $line; # One line of directory info
my $record; # One record of the result
my $timestring; # String containing time info
my @filelist; # List of contained files
my @stat; # Result of stat command

opendir(DIRFILE,$direc)||die("Fail: Open directory: ",$!);
rewinddir(DIRFILE);
while (defined ($line=readdir(DIRFILE)))
{
next if $line eq '.';
next if $line eq '..';
(@filelist)=(@filelist,$line);
}
close(DIRFILE);
foreach(@filelist)
{
$fullname=sprintf "%s%s\\",$direc,$ARG;
if (-d $fullname)
{
if ($recursive==1) # User can suppress recursive operation
{
&collect($fullname);
}
}
else
{
$fullname=~s/\\$//; # Files don't need a trailing backslash
@stat=stat($fullname);
$timestring=localtime($stat[9]);
$record=sprintf ("%s\t%d Bytes\t%s",$fullname,$stat[7],$timestring);
printf("%s\n",$record);
}
}

It makes no problems when coming across German umlauts - you can pass the
$fullname variable to an open command without problems. So you may give it a
try.

Cheers,
Detlef.

 

[John W. Krahn]

I use File::Find to go through some directories and grab
files with a .log extension. I then open() each of these logs
and do some processing on them. The mechanism itself works as
expected, but I run into trouble when a log's file name has
foreign characters in it (like German umlauts, for example).
So in this snippet:


find ( \&process(), '/starting/path' );

sub process {
return unless /\.log$/;

open ( LOG, $_ ) or die $!;

# go on to process file
}


open() refuses to open files with umaluts in the name (claiming
"File not found", even though the file is present).

I thought that "use utf8" might solve the problem, but it
seems that it's used to allow foreign characters in the _script_,
but it has no effect whatsoever on the script's _input_. Can
someone please suggest how to get my script to read those pesky
foreign character files?

It could be that the magic involved in the two argument form of open() is what
is causing your problem. Try it with the three argument open() or sysopen()
instead.

perldoc perlopentut


John