Chapter 06 File Operations

File Operations
File Operations in Perl
 To work with Files in Perl, we need to use “open” and “close”

 Filehandle: a connection between our Perl program and the
operating system’s file structure.
 Contains information about the file, the way the file was
opened (read-only, etc), where you are in the file, and some
other attributes.
 Used without any special characters
 The convention is to use uppercase for filehandle variables to
avoid confusion with Perl keywords.
 Every file manipulation is done through filehandles
for internal use Copyright © Infineon Technologies AG 2014. All rights reserved. Page 2
Opening Files
 Syntax of “open” function:
open (filehandle, <MODE>, filename);
 Returns
 a nonzero value if the file has been opened successfully
 0 if an error has occurred
Default open mode: READ
if (open(BIGFILE, “datafile.dat”)){
statements to run
} else {
print “Cannot open the file!\n”;
}
Closing Files
 Syntax of “close” function:
close filehandle;
 If you re-use already opened filehandle in another open

command, the first file is automatically closed and the filehandle
is opened with the new file
 Typical usage:
open(BIGFILE, “data.txt”;
statements…
close BIGFILE;
Reading Files
 Simple way to read a file: ‘file input operator’ - a pair of angle
brackets around the filehandle
open(BIGFILE, “data.txt”)
Reads a line from the file data.txt
$line=<BIGFILE>; and store it in $line
 You can use loops to read an entire file

while (defined($line=<MFILE>)){
print $line;
}
 Short form: stores the line in the default variable “$_”
while (<MFILE>){
print $_;
}
 The shortform also checks for end-of-file for you
Reading into Array
 You could read all lines from a file to an array as below:

open (MFILE, “data.txt”);
@list=<MFILE>; The entire file is read in ‘list’
close <MFILE>;
 Each line in the file is assigned as one element in the list

 The first line is @list[0], second in @[list[1], and so on
 Since the array or list is just a copy of the file’s contents, any
changes made to the array will not harm the original file
You can also run commands with Open : e.g. open(DATA, "ls -l |")
Correct/Improve the Program
#!/usr/local/bin/perl # Program to open a file and print the contents
open (MYFILE, 'data.txt');
(<MYFILE>) {
print "$!\n";
close (MYFILE)
#!/usr/local/bin/perl # Program to open a file and print the contents

open (MYFILE, 'data.txt');
while (<MYFILE>) {
print "$_\n";
}
close (MYFILE);
File Checks (use of die and warn)
 “die”: often used with file commands
 When die is encountered, the program stops executing and
shows a message such as:
died at fileopen.txt line 165

 Example on using die with open function: “open or die”
open(BIGFILE, “data.txt”) || die “Could not open file”;
 Any error recorded by Perl will be stored in a special variable ‘$!’

open(BIGFILE, “data.txt”) || die “Failed to open: $!”;
 “warn”: instead of exiting the program, you may simply issue a

warning
open(BIGFILE, “data.txt”) || warn “Warning: $!”;
File Modes
Entities Definition
< Read Only Access
> Creates, Writes, and Truncates
>> Creates, Writes, and Appends
+< Reads and Writes
+> Reads, Writes, Creates and Truncates
+>> Reads, Writes, Creates and Appends
open(MYFILE, “>bigfile.txt”); # WRITE Mode

open(MYFILE, “>>bigfile.txt”); # APPEND Mode
Writing Data to a File
 Writing data to a file: use print with the filehandle

print BIGDATA “Test Line”;
 You can use a logic structure to make sure a write has been
performed properly
if (! print MFILE $num1){
warn “Can’t write to the file!”;)
}
close (MFILE);
Exercise (Copy file content)
#!/usr/bin/perl
# Open file to read
open(DATA1, "<file1.txt");
# Open new file to write
open(DATA2, ">file2.txt");
# Copy data from one file to another.
while(<DATA1>) {
print DATA2 $_;
}
close( DATA1 );
close( DATA2 );
Exercises/Chapter_06_File_Operations/File-Operations-1.pl
File Tests
 Perl allows the UNIX like file tests to be performed
if (-r FILE) {..}
 The condition has one valid option followed by the

filehandle/filename to be tested
 Few basic tests are as below:
Test Description
-d true if directory
-e true if file exists
-f true if regular file
-r true if readable
-s returns size of file in bytes
-w true if writable
-z true if file exists but is empty
Exercise (File Tests)
#/usr/bin/perl -w
my $file = "file1.txt";
my (@description, $size);
if (-e $file) {
push @description, 'a text file' if (-T $file);
push @description, 'a directory' if (-d $file);
push @description, 'executable' if (-x $file);
push @description, (($size = -s $file)) ? "$size bytes" :
'empty';
print "$file is ", join(', ',@description),"\n";
}
Misc File Operations
 To delete a file, use the unlink command with the filename:
unlink file1.dat;
 Reading Directories: use “opendir”
opendir handle directory;
here handle is the directory handle you want to open, and

directory is the name of the directory to be read.
Misc File Operations (cont.)
 Read a directory: use “readdir”

 Close a directory: use “closedir”
opendir TEMPDIR, “./temp” || die;
$dir_entry=readdir TEMPDIR;
closedir TEMPDIR;
 Just like file reading, you can read a directory line by line or an
entire directory
# Read the entire directory
opendir (MDIR, “./temp”) || die;
@filelist=readdir MDIR;
closedir MDIR;
Misc File Operations (cont.)
 To change directories, you can use the “chdir” command

 Changes in directory can be specified absolutely or relatively
chdir ../book;
 If you do not specify a directory argument for chdir, it will

change to your home directory
 To create a directory, use the mkdir command with both the new
directory name and the permissions are arguments
mkdir temp, 0755 || die;
Do it yourself!
#!/usr/bin/perl –w
use strict;
my $file = "file.txt";
if (____) { # Check if File exists and is readable
# Open File for writing
print FILE "Created by Perl\n";
# Close the File
}

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File Operations

File Operations in Perl

 To work with Files in Perl, we need to use “open” and “close”

 Syntax of “close” function:

 If you re-use already opened filehandle in another open

 You can use loops to read an entire file

 You could read all lines from a file to an array as below:

 Each line in the file is assigned as one element in the list

#!/usr/local/bin/perl # Program to open a file and print the contents

open (MYFILE, 'data.txt');

#!/usr/local/bin/perl # Program to open a file and print the contents

died at fileopen.txt line 165

 Any error recorded by Perl will be stored in a special variable ‘$!’

 “warn”: instead of exiting the program, you may simply issue a

open(MYFILE, “>bigfile.txt”); # WRITE Mode

 Writing data to a file: use print with the filehandle

if (-r FILE) {..}

 The condition has one valid option followed by the

 To delete a file, use the unlink command with the filename:

 Reading Directories: use “opendir”

opendir handle directory;

here handle is the directory handle you want to open, and

 Read a directory: use “readdir”

 To change directories, you can use the “chdir” command

 If you do not specify a directory argument for chdir, it will

mkdir temp, 0755 || die;

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