Question

I have the below “system command” for moving the file. Is it good to use File::Move command or the use the below one. In case if File::Move is better, how can I use it?

system("mv $LOGPATH/test/work/LOGFILE  $LOGPATH/test/done/$LOGFILE") == 0
  or WriteLog(ERROR, "mv command Failed $LOGPATH/test/work/$LOGFILE  status was $?");

Answer 1

The function you are looking for is in File::Copy:

use File::Copy 'move';
move $x, $y or WriteLog ("move $x, $y failed: $!");

File::Copy is part of the standard distribution of Perl itself.

You can of course use a system ("mv ...") command to do the same thing. The advantages of File::Copy are:

• It will work across different operating systems, which may be necessary if you’re writing something for other people to use;
• It doesn’t expose you to security holes due to passing data to the shell, or portability bugs because the filepath has meta characters and spaces in it like /Library/Application Support/Hi I'm On A Mac/;
• It is faster: see Schwern’s paste. The cost of system swamps everything else. File::Copy::move and rename have about the same cost, so you may as well use the safer move which works across filesystems.