Mkdir perl error: no such file

Question

I am trying to make a directory in the following code:

# reads in files from a corpus for my $corpusFile (glob("./Corpus/*.txt")) { # makes part of the name of the file the name for a directory my $file = substr ($corpusFile, 9, 6); my $outputFiles = "./Output/$file"; mkdir $outputFiles unless -e $outputFiles or die "Cannot make file directory: $!";

However, I get the error: Cannot make file directory: No such file or directory at perl/corpus.pl

I don't really understand this error. Of course the directory doesn't exist - I'm trying to create it.

To explain my file structure a bit: I have a big folder that contains an "output" folder and a "perl" folder - my perl code is in the folder called "perl" and I'm trying to create a directory in "output." I am very new to perl, so I apologize if the answer here is obvious.

does Output exist? mkdir won't recursively create a structure for you. — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented Feb 22, 2016 at 20:39
If $file is directory, why is it called file? If $file is a dir then your test should be -d not -e. To recursively create dirs use File::Path. — Neil H Watson
– Neil H Watson, Commented Feb 22, 2016 at 20:40
Thank you for your help - Output does exist, though, and it's called file because it's not yet a directory. It made sense to me, but I'll admit I could have clearer variable names. — Lisa
– Lisa, Commented Feb 22, 2016 at 20:58

Hunter McMillen · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-22 20:42:09Z

If you look at how this expression:

mkdir $outputFiles unless -e $outputFiles or die "Cannot make file directory: $!";

is parsed by Perl, the answer is apparent. You can see how this is parsed using (-p prints parentheses):

perl -MO=Deparse,-p \ -e 'mkdir "foo" unless -e "foo" or die "Cannot create foo: $!"

produces:

(((-e 'foo') or die("Cannot create foo: $!")) or mkdir('foo')); -e syntax OK

Now you should be able to see the issue, according to the above expression:

1) If directory 'foo' does not exist, the program will die with the message 'Cannot create foo: No such file or directory'

2) If directory 'foo' does exist, the program will call mkdir 'foo'. This is pointless however, since it already exists.

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