FAQ 5.41 How do I traverse a directory tree?

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5.41: How do I traverse a directory tree?

(contributed by brian d foy)

The "File::Find" module, which comes with Perl, does all of the hard
work to traverse a directory structure. It comes with Perl. You simply
call the "find" subroutine with a callback subroutine and the
directories you want to traverse:

use File::Find;

find( \&wanted, @directories );

sub wanted {
# full path in $File::Find::name
# just filename in $_
... do whatever you want to do ...
}

The "File::Find::Closures", which you can download from CPAN, provides
many ready-to-use subroutines that you can use with "File::Find".

The "File::Finder", which you can download from CPAN, can help you
create the callback subroutine using something closer to the syntax of
the "find" command-line utility:

use File::Find;
use File::Finder;

my $deep_dirs = File::Finder->depth->type('d')->ls->exec('rmdir','{}');

find( $deep_dirs->as_options, @places );

The "File::Find::Rule" module, which you can download from CPAN, has a
similar interface, but does the traversal for you too:

use File::Find::Rule;

my @files = File::Find::Rule->file()
->name( '*.pm' )
->in( @INC );



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