http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=314472

/dev/trash has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have this snippit of code: 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use English;
use diagnostics;
use File::Copy;
use File::DosGlob qw(glob);
my $error=0;
copy($_,'Z:/mail_test') foreach glob 'E:/EudoraPro/*.mbx';
printf ("Mailboxes done!\n");
copy($_,'Z:/mail_test') foreach glob 'E:/EudoraPro/*.toc';
printf ("TOC's done!\n");

[download]
Some of it I picked up elsewhere some of it is my own. What I wanted it to do was to copy all the *.mbx and *.toc files to a network share for backup purposes and then to tell me it completed that task. The copying works fine, but I never see the "Mailboxes are done" and TOC's are done" messages. I'm using Activestate Perl v5.6.1 build 633 on a Windows 98 machine.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Screen Output of Messages
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Dec 13, 2003 at 06:34 UTC

    Output to stdout should be flushed to the screen when the program ends regardless of whether you are using print or printf.

    It's just a thought, but you're not by any chance invoking the script by double-clicking it in the explorer are you? And the command gets run, but the cmd window it runs in is disappearing before you get a chance to see the results?

    If so, try adding 

    print 'Type any key to exit'; <stdin>;

    [download]

    as the last line of the program. If that 'fixes' the problem, then you might take a look at the thread at Small Problem with running Perl Scripts in Windows for some other alternatives.

    Examine what is said, not who speaks.
    "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
    "Think for yourself!" - Abigail
    Hooray!
[reply]
[d/l]
      I like system('PAUSE') myself, you get all those nice dots for free :-)

      cheers

      tachyon

[reply]
[d/l]
      Actually I am using Java to start Eudora and when Eudora closes, I call the Perl Script from the Java program. I double click on the Java app icon to run it.
[reply]
Re: Screen Output of Messages
by tachyon (Chancellor) on Dec 13, 2003 at 04:33 UTC

    Seems like a lot of work to do somthing you can do off the command line, or in perl using bactics to exec shell commands. The /Y supresses overwrite warnings COPY /? for options. 

    #!/usr/bin/perl
print `copy /Y E:\\EudoraPro\\*.mbx Z:\\mail_test`;
print `copy /Y E:\\EudoraPro\\*.toc Z:\\mail_test`;

    [download]

    Anyway it should print even though in Perl we tend to use print most of the time rather than printf with parens C style. In fact it does print for me on Win2k and AS 633. You might try adding $|++ to the top of your script to force buffer flushing but the \n should do that anyways.

    cheers

    tachyon

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
      Yeah, by default perl will line-buffer output if STDOUT is a terminal, so the \n's should take care of it... unless you're sending this to a pipe or a file or some such.

      ------------
      :Wq
      Not an editor command: Wq
[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom