Timing is everything

My file synchroniser needs to know when a file was last modified, in order to decide if this version is newer than the version it's being compared with. Perl provides a very convenient stat() function that includes this, along with a variety of other information.

All we need do is...

use File::stat;

then...

my $StatusBlock = stat($Entry)
or die "Couldn't stat $Entry: $!";
my $LastModified = $StatusBlock->mtime;
print MASTERFILE "$Entry | $LastModified\n";

The first line creates a hash for the file information, the second is a crude handler for any errors, the third extracts the number of seconds since the epoch at which the file was modified and the last prints the file name and the date to my work file.

This is a nice example of Perl's power to simplify something that would otherwise require a lot of code. What's more, it's easy to understand, which is a massive advantage when maintenance is required. Having spent far too long puzzling over obscure code in the wee small hours with frantic managers breathing heavily in my ear, 'easy to understand' seems very good to me.
: