Re: Perl 5.12: Problems with VMS file name processing

On Apr 24, 2010, at 8:18 AM, Craig A. Berry wrote:

>
> On Apr 23, 2010, at 11:37 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
>> here is another reproducer for a 5.12 problem (this might be  
>> something for
>> Robert). The following little script fails:
>>
>> use File::Copy;
>>
>> my $from = 'sys$login:from.lis';
>> my $to   = 'sys$login:to.lis';
>>
>> system("create/fdl=nl: $from") ;
>> copy($from, $to) || warn ("Copy failed:", $!);
>>
>> The failiure condition is that the file spec does not contain an  
>> explicit
>> directory spec (i.e. dsa0:[zinser]to.lis works).
>
> Hmm.  What does this give you with 5.8.6:
>
> $ perl -"MFile::Spec" -e "print File::Spec->catpath('foo:', q(),  
> 'bar');"
> foo:[]bar



Carl Friedberg reminds me that this is still out there tripping people  
up.  Here's what I just wrote him about it.  I hope we get the fix  
into File::Spec at some point, but I don't know when that will be:

I think what it boils down to (as I posted on-list at some point) is  
this:

$ perl -"MFile::Spec" -e "print File::Spec->catpath('foo:', q(),  
'bar');"
foo:[]bar

File::Copy is using catpath, so when there is a zero-length directory  
spec, it defaults in the double brackets.  It can probably be fixed by  
patching catpath like so:

--- lib/File/Spec/VMS.pm;-0     2010-07-15 23:37:15 -0500
+++ lib/File/Spec/VMS.pm        2010-07-16 17:29:15 -0500
@@ -759,6 +759,7 @@ sub catpath {
           $dir = vmspath($dir);
       }
     }
+    $dir = '' if $dir eq '[]' || $dir eq '<>';
     "$dev$dir$file";
}

[end]

This is relatively untested, so do be careful.  I haven't thought of  
anything else that will break, but the number of things I"m capable of  
thinking of is relatively small compared to the number of things that  
might break.

The reproducer for your problem is as simple as:

$ perl -"MFile::Copy" -e "copy('sys$help:DECRAM$HELP.HLB', 'sys 
$login:temp.hlb') or die $!;"
error in directory name at -e line 1.
%RMS-F-DIR, error in directory name

but this does work after the patch above.


________________________________________
Craig A. Berry
mailto:[email protected]

"... getting out of a sonnet is much more
  difficult than getting in."
                  Brad Leithauser