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Line 1 starts the Get_Dirs function. Line 2 stuffs the argument
(path of the “base” directory) into the scalar.
Line 3 opens the base directory and assigns the GD handle to it.
Line 4 creates an array called @DIRS for later use. Line 5 starts
looping through the contents of the base directory. Line 6 assigns the item to
the scalar . Line 7 essentially says, “if this item
begins with a dot, then skip it.” Line 8 checks to make sure that the item
is question is a directory. Line 9 adds the item to the @DIRS
array if it is a directory (as determined in the previous line). Line 10 ends
the previous If statement. Line 11 ends the For loop.
Line 12 closes the directory handle. Line 13 returns the contents of the
@DIRS array.
Function 2: Given the path to an HTML page, extract and return its title
Here we have the same Get_Title function from the last script.
This function takes an HTML filename as an argument and returns the title if
one is found:
1: sub Get_Title { |
Don’t let this snippet scare you; it’s actually quite logical once
dissected. Line 1 declares the function Get_Title. Line 2 takes
the parameter we passed to the function (that’s the name of the HTML file), and
shifts it into the scalar variable . Line 3 says,
“unless this is a file, return the text ‘NO INDEX’.” Line 4 opens the
file for reading and assigns the handle HTML to it. Line 5 begins
a while iteration over every line of the open file (every line will cause a new
iteration of the loop, the contents of the line will be stored in the special
variable sh). Line 6 says, “if this line contains a
place the stuff in
between in the special variable and continue inside the
brackets.” Line 7 is inside the if statement and closes the
HTML file. Line 8 returns the text of the title and exits the function. Line 9
ends the if statement. Line 10 ends the while statement. Line 11
will close the HTML file if no title has been found. Line 12 will return the
word Untitled in the advent that no title has been found. Line 13 ends the
function. This function is a bit complex in code, but I like how it
demonstrates a lot of Perl’s power and flexibility. The if
statement in line 6 contains a regular expression that it’s case-insensitive
(note the i after the last /), so that different capitalizations
all appear the same to the if).
Function 3: Given any path, judge its “depth”
For the purposes of this example, I’m defining “depth” as
the number of forward-slashes. This function takes a path, and
returns the number of fore-slashes:
1: sub Get_Depth { |
Line 1 begins the function Get_Depth. Line 2 stores the passed
argument (the path in question) in the special variable sh. Line 3
uses a transliteration regular expression to count the number of fore-slashes,
and return it. Line 4 ends the function.
