Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mcnc!uvaarpa!mmdf
From: bbs@hankel.rutgers.edu (Barry Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: bug in R.E. ?
Message-ID: <1991May11.204205.10055@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 11 May 91 20:42:05 GMT
Sender: mmdf@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU (Uvaarpa Mail System)
Reply-To: Barry Schwartz <bbs@hankel.rutgers.edu>
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 22

lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov (Larry Wall) writes:

]This is a message from your shell, not from perl.  Probably because you said:
]
]:     @dirs = <$DIR[a-z]*>;
]
]This makes use of the shell to do globbing, which has its advantages and
]its disadvantages.  You've just discovered the primary disadvantage--shells
]have arbitrary limits.
]
]When writing a program like this, it's better to use opendir() and readdir().
]It won't run into the limits of the shell, and it runs faster too.

I just want to make a pitch for readdir().  At first it would
seem easier to use shell globbing, but using readdir is easy
once you start using it, _plus it gives you the power of Perl
regular expressions as your globbing mechanism_.  That's saved
me trouble on at least one occasion.


-- 
Barry Schwartz       bbs@hankel.rutgers.edu    trashman@kb2ear.uucp