Question

I’m writing a script that will loop through a range of numbers, build a glob pattern, and test if a file exists in a directory based on the glob.

The images are Nascar car number images, and follow the the following pattern:

1_EARNHARDTGANASSI_256.TGA
2_PENSKERACING_256.TGA

Here is a snippet of the script that I am using:

foreach $currCarNum (0..101) {  
    if (glob("//headshot01/CARS/${currCarNum}_*_256.TGA")) {    
        print("Car image $currCarNum exists\n");
    } else {
        print("Car image $currCarNum doesn't exist\n");
    }   
}

The problem I’m having, is that images that exist in the directory, and that should match the file glob pattern do not.

For example, the file with the following name returns as not existing:

2_PENSKERACING_256.TGA

Whereas, the following returns as existing:

1_EARNHARDTGANASSI_256.TGA

If I use the same file glob pattern in DOS or Cygwin, both files are listed properly.

Are file glob patterns interpreted differently in Perl? Is there something I am missing?

Answer 1

You need to have the results returned in a list format instead of a scalar format. Try this for your if statement, it worked for me when I tested it.

if (my @arr = glob("//headshot01/CARS/${currCarNum}_*_256.TGA")) {