#!perl -w
use strict;

my $file = "graq.txt";
my $source = &get_path("oldfiles/$file");
my $result = &get_path("newfiles/$file");

open( READ, "<$source" ) or die( "Could not open $source: $!\n" );
open( WRITE, ">$result" ) or die( "Could not write to $result: $!\n" )
+;
while(<READ>)
{
   # Do stuff.
   print WRITE $_;
}
close WRITE;
close READ;

# ---------------------------------
# Local Functions.
sub base_path { '/home/main/sub'; }

sub get_path { return &base_path."/".$_[0]; }
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editTypo in die()/edit

--
Graq

I might be being a bit thick but I can't get it to work. It looks as though the WRITE line only works if $result is a file, not a file path. I find that

my $file = "/home/htdocs/hosted/thinweb/trainingboard.co.uk/consumers/
+savedsearches/$g{'SearchFile'}";
open(WRITE,">$file") or die $!;
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fails, whereas

chdir "/home/htdocs/hosted/thinweb/trainingboard.co.uk/consumers/saved
+searches";
open(WRITE,">$g{'SearchFile'}") or die $!;
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succeeds. (NB the earlier lines I posted were re-written to make the examples easier to read - the above are as in my actual script, just in case there's something else funny going on... in which case I apologise for my over-zealous desire to do a tidy post).

§ George Sherston

Ok. First things first, add some verbosity to your error handling:

open(WRITE,">$file") or die( "Cannot write to $file: $!" );

And then let us know what the whole error is, makes it much easier :)

--
Graq

Man this smells like a permissions issue. It's possible to have permission to cd into a directory without having permission to ls in it. This is a freaky benefit of the *nix user/group permission bits. If'n I was you, I'd play with accessing these files from the command line, just with touch and vi, to see if there's some intermediate directory that's got permission funkiness. Make sure you do this with the user that the script runs as.

Or, another good thing to see, would be the ls -ld output on the directories you've listed up there.

This is one of those things that, as blackmateria said, should work. It's irritating that it doesn't.

Ira,

"So... What do all these little arrows mean?"
~unknown

Umm, maybe I'm not following you correctly here, but it looks like you have a bit of a mish-mosh. Relative paths (like those starting with "..") start from your current directory. To do what you're looking for, you need to change your directory first. Something like this should work:

chdir "/home/main/sub/oldfiles";  # or wherever
open READ, "$file"    # open READ ">$file" is a typo, no?
    or die "Couldn't open $file to read: $!\n";
# ... Do stuff, ready to write
open WRITE1, "> ../newfiles/$file"
    or die "Couldn't open $file to write: $!\n";
# ..Whatever...
open WRITE2, ">../../cgi-bin/$file"
    or die "Couldn't open $file to write: $!\n";
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Did I answer the right question?

I think this isn't the answer because I think (which I shd have spelled out) the current directory is /home/main/cgi-bin. The reason I'm a bit equivocal is that I do not explicitly set it to be the current directory; it's jus the directory where my script resides. Is that the problem? Why?

§ George Sherston

Two things: First, depending on the server configuration, the script may or may not be executing in the directory in which the file is installed. It's not where the script is installed that matters, but the current directory of the Perl process that's executing your script.

Second, more importantly: if you depend on a particular path, don't assume you're starting there, chdir to that directory explicitly. It guarantees your paths and has negligible overhead. If you're worried about spelling out the directory name in your script, read it in from the environment or some such. But don't assume your script will always execute in the same place.

Huh, quite right, my bad. I've amended my WRITE (actually... it's a root node... but the excellent davorg obliged). The error message I get when opening the file for writing is No such file or directory

§ George Sherston

chdir "/home/main/sub/newfiles" or die $!;
open(WRITE, ">$file") or die "Can't open $file: $!";
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buckaduck

Use double back slash inside the path

This will work