You are viewing the version of this documentation from Perl 5.8.1. View the latest version

CONTENTS

NAME

File::Path - create or remove directory trees

SYNOPSIS

use File::Path;

mkpath(['/foo/bar/baz', 'blurfl/quux'], 1, 0711);
rmtree(['foo/bar/baz', 'blurfl/quux'], 1, 1);

DESCRIPTION

The mkpath function provides a convenient way to create directories, even if your mkdir kernel call won't create more than one level of directory at a time. mkpath takes three arguments:

It returns a list of all directories (including intermediates, determined using the Unix '/' separator) created.

If a system error prevents a directory from being created, then the mkpath function throws a fatal error with Carp::croak. This error can be trapped with an eval block:

eval { mkpath($dir) };
if ($@) {
  print "Couldn't create $dir: $@";
}

Similarly, the rmtree function provides a convenient way to delete a subtree from the directory structure, much like the Unix command rm -r. rmtree takes three arguments:

It returns the number of files successfully deleted. Symlinks are simply deleted and not followed.

NOTE: If the third parameter is not TRUE, rmtree is unsecure in the face of failure or interruption. Files and directories which were not deleted may be left with permissions reset to allow world read and write access. Note also that the occurrence of errors in rmtree can be determined only by trapping diagnostic messages using $SIG{__WARN__}; it is not apparent from the return value. Therefore, you must be extremely careful about using rmtree($foo,$bar,0) in situations where security is an issue.

DIAGNOSTICS

AUTHORS

Tim Bunce <Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk> and Charles Bailey <bailey@newman.upenn.edu>