Suggestion re: dynamically attaching files

I have an external task, that, depending on the file currently attached, say ABC_doc, originating from the templatedata data folder, I would like to attach all files in folder data that start with ABC (e.g.: ABC_tif, ABC_pdf, ABC_ppt, etc.). I would appreciate any suggestion on best practices in doing so, even a code snippet with respect to the regex required.

Additional: code developed on windows 2000 TS 6.5, but deployed to Unix server TS6.5.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

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Migrateduser


my @list = `ls -1 /dist/folder/ABC*`;
$task->AddMultipleFiles(\@list, "");

ShovelFace

Thanks, batasari,

What would it look like if say, ABC was dynamic? ABC_doc is the attached file, but it could be any filename, where the number of extensions following the underscore are variable.

Migrateduser


my $filename = "ABC_doc";
my $prefix = $filename;
my $prefix =~ m|^([A-za-z]*_)|;
my $prefix = $1 # now prefix has any string of charecters upto the first '_'
my @list = `ls -1 /dist/folder/$prefix\.*`;
$task->AddMultipleFiles(\@list, "");

Migrateduser

Tha's what the "*" is for. The * is a wildcard and matches anything that follows it.

For instance, to list all files in a given directory with the txt file extension, one would write:

ls *.txt

Similarly, to find all files that begin with 'a' and have an exe file extension, type:

ls a*.exe

To add my $0.02, the Windows equivalent of ls -1 is "dir /B". I wasn't sure if you were going to run this on Windows or in Unix.

ShovelFace

Thanks gentlemen, great info!

In the windows case, I'd be looking at the following, correct?

my @list = `dir /D Y:\default\main\company\WORKAREA\company\templatedata\news\data\/$prefix\.*`;

Migrateduser

Close.

/B instead of /D.

It looks like you want all files in this directory. In this case, the star is not necessary. Only use the star (in DOS) if you want to exclude files by including only those with certain characters. DOS also does not natively take regular expressions, so I think the .* wouldn't give you what you're expecting.

Experiment by using this command in the DOS shell and make sure it's what you want.

ISCBorisB


$task->AddMultipleFiles(\@list, "");

Just for my education... I had so many issues with AddMultipleFiles in the past that I stopped using it alltogether
long time ago. I usually add files one by one in a loop. Has AddMultiple been fixed in 6.x ?

ShovelFace


my $filename = "ABC_doc";
my $prefix = $filename;
my $prefix =~ m|^([A-za-z]*_)|;
my $prefix = $1 # now prefix has any string of charecters upto the first '_'
my @list = `ls -1 /dist/folder/$prefix\.*`;
$task->AddMultipleFiles(\@list, "");

How the regex change if one does not want the "\" to be removed?

Migrateduser

Actually, you wouldn't want to use a regex here. The only regex-like character you might want to use is a wildcard (see explanation above). So,

`ls -1 /dist/folder/$prefix\.*`;

would be rewritten as simply:

`ls -1 /dist/folder/$prefix*`;

Not to labor the point but if you just had a prefix and possibly had some other characters with an optional file extension, you would go with the statement above. However, if the prefix is exactly what appears just before the file extension, you would write:

`ls -1 /dist/folder/$prefix.*`;

Notice the addition of the "." in this example. There is no need to escape this, by the way. Anyway, if you wanted to list all files with a given prefix with possibly some additional text beyond the prefix and definitely a file extension, you would write:

`ls -1 /dist/folder/$prefix*.*`;

Regards,

Dave

Migrateduser

If you really, really wanted to use a regex here, what you could do is pipe your output to an "egrep" statement (or "grep -e"). I can't go into depth about what to do with that here but I recommend reading up on various command line methodologies, anyway.

jbonifaci

If all you want to do is read all of the files from a certain directory, I would recommend using opendir...

~Jeff

Migrateduser

I'm not sure that buys ShovelFace anything (what an interesting username!) only because s/he needs to include only some files -- let's say those that start with a given string -- so, a loop structure would be needed if opendir() were used.

Adam Stoller

I'm not sure that buys ShovelFace anything (what an interesting username!) only because s/he needs to include only some files -- let's say those that start with a given string -- so, a loop structure would be needed if opendir() were used.

Well ...

opendir and readdir are portable - 'ls' and 'dir' are not
opendir and readdir are built-in and thus faster than 'ls' and 'dir' because there's no additional overhead for starting up a shell process to run them.
one can use perl's grep or map functions for reducing, if not eliminating the loop - though the loop isn't really all that bad
opendir and readdir can be used to build a recusive subroutine, if the files being sought for are in multiple directories or sub-directories
if you really don't want to use opendir and readdir - at least use glob'ing instead of 'ls' and 'dir'
```
my @flist = <$path/${prefix}_*>
```
(or something like that - on a public terminal without perl to verify right now)