File::Listing(3)

NAME
parse_dir - parse directory listing

SYNOPSIS
 use File::Listing;
 for (parse_dir(`ls -l`)) {
     ($name, $type, $size, $mtime, $mode) = @$_;
     next if $type ne 'f'; # plain file
     #...
 }
 # directory listing can also be read from a file
 open(LISTING, "zcat ls-lR.gz|");
 $dir = parse_dir(\*LISTING, '+0000');

DESCRIPTION
The parse_dir() routine can be used to parse directory listings. Currently it only understand Unix `'ls -l'' and `'ls -lR'' format. It should eventually be able to most things you might get back from a ftp server file listing (LIST command), i.e. VMS listings, NT listings, DOS listings,...

The first parameter to parse_dir() is the directory listing to parse. It can be a scalar, a reference to an array of directory lines or a glob representing a filehandle to read the directory listing from.

The second parameter is the time zone to use when parsing time stamps in the listing. If this value is undefined, then the local time zone is assumed.

The third parameter is the type of listing to assume. The values will be strings like 'unix', 'vms', 'dos'. Currently only 'unix' is implemented and this is also the default value. Ideally, the listing type should be determined automatically.

The fourth parameter specifies how unparseable lines should be treated. Values can be 'ignore', 'warn' or a code reference. Warn means that the perl warn() function will be called. If a code reference is passed, then this routine will be called and the return value from it will be incorporated in the listing. The default is 'ignore'.

Only the first parameter is mandatory.

The return value from parse_dir() is a list of directory entries. In a scalar context the return value is a reference to the list. The directory entries are represented by an array consisting of [ $filename, $filetype, $filesize, $filetime, $filemode ]. The $filetype value is one of the letters 'f', 'd', 'l' or '?'. The $filetime value is the seconds since Jan 1, 1970. The $filemode is a bitmask like the mode returned by stat().

CREDITS
Based on lsparse.pl (from Lee McLoughlin's ftp mirror package) and Net::FTP's parse_dir (Graham Barr).