Trouble unlinking files...

[starlight849]

Hi,
I am having a little bit of trouble with unlinking a file.

I would like to unlink it from another directory. The file name contains special characters in it and I have not the ability to change that.

Here is my code:

sub FileRemove(@)
{
my $RemovalFile;
my @goners = @_;

foreach $RemovalFile(@goners)
 {
 chomp $RemovalFile;
 print "$RemovalFile \n";
 unlink("\"$RemovalFile\"");

 my $status = DoesFileExist($RemovalFile);
   
if ($status)
    {
    `rm "\"$RemovalFile\""`;
     DoesFileExist($RemovalFile);
    }
  }
}

[RonB]

First, get rid of the prototype.

Using chomp on $RemovalFile is a little odd because that step should have been done with building the array of filenames.

Why are you surrounding the filename with quotes in the unlink statement? Do your filenames actually begin and end with double quotes? I doubt it and that is the most likely reason the unlink is failing.

Perl will tell you why it failed to unlink the file, if you had asked it.

change:

unlink("\"$RemovalFile\"");

to:

unlink $RemovalFile or die "failed to unlink '$RemoveFile' $!"

;

Why do you have a DoesFileExist() sub when Perl handles that for you with the -e file test operator?

my $status = -e $RemovalFile;

[starlight849]

Here is the error. A file or directory in the path name does not exist. at line 176, <$REMOVELIST> line 3
The file path is right... However the file name contains ± character in it... I was able to get it working doing the rm command but I would prefer to use unlink..

Could you explain to me why you think I should not use prototypes?

I followed the suggestions you made. Here is my modified code.

sub FileRemove
{
my $RemovalFile;
my @goners = @_;

foreach $RemovalFile(@goners)
 {
 print "$RemovalFile \n";
 unlink($RemovalFile) or die "failed to unlink $RemovalFile $!";
 my $status = -e $RemovalFile;

if ($status)
    {
    `rm "\"$RemovalFile\""`;
     DoesFileExist($RemovalFile);
    }
  }
}

[RonB]

Could you explain to me why you think I should not use prototypes?

Before reading the info linked below, can you explain how prototypes are used in perl and why you think you should use them here?

Far More than Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know about Prototypes in Perl

To handle the special characters, you need to encode/decode the filename.

Here's a link to a solution of a very similar problem to yours.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1742279

[starlight849]

When I run the encode, decode on the filename it turns the ± to a ? and still fails to remove the file.

[RonB]

Please post a short but complete script that demonstrates the problem and a couple sample filenames that fail to be deleted due to the special characters.

[starlight849]

ok here is my sample script.
Here is the output
Ive been playing around with the different formats of encoding but still haven't got the syntax right.

abc---±.txt
failed to unlink abc---?.txt A file or directory in the path name does not exist. at test.pl line 23.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Encode;

my @goners = ('abc---±.txt','def--±.txt');
my ($status) = ModelRemove(@goners);

sub ModelRemove
{
my $RemovalFile;
my @goners = @_;

foreach $RemovalFile(@goners)
 {
 print "$RemovalFile \n";
 $RemovalFile = encode("gb2312", decode("utf-8", $RemovalFile));
 unlink($RemovalFile) or die "failed to unlink $RemovalFile $!";
  }
}

[RonB]

If you do the encode/decode, you need to specify the correct encoding.

I ran a test using your script but without doing the encoding and it worked fine for me.

D:\test\bytes>dir
 Volume in drive D is DATA
 Volume Serial Number is B676-6CE5

 Directory of D:\test\bytes

03/11/2013  03:30 PM    <DIR>          .
03/11/2013  03:30 PM    <DIR>          ..
03/11/2013  03:29 PM               473 abc---±.txt
03/11/2013  03:29 PM               659 def--±.txt
03/11/2013  03:05 PM               392 starlight849.pl
               3 File(s)          1,524 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  194,470,682,624 bytes free

D:\test\bytes>starlight849.pl
abc---▒.txt
def--▒.txt

D:\test\bytes>dir
 Volume in drive D is DATA
 Volume Serial Number is B676-6CE5

 Directory of D:\test\bytes

03/11/2013  03:33 PM    <DIR>          .
03/11/2013  03:33 PM    <DIR>          ..
03/11/2013  03:05 PM               392 starlight849.pl
               1 File(s)            392 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  194,470,682,624 bytes free

[starlight849]

You're right it works... It was a problem in the file that was populating my removal list. Thanks so much for all the help Ron, and helping me think. :)