I need a perl script to delete files on the ftp server older then 1 week

['chris']

hi

I need a perl script to delete all files
beginning with cm* and older then 1 week
via ftp, on the ftp server.

kind regards
chris

[Olivier Drouin]

no need for perl

find / -name "cm*" -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;

or something like that... ( man find ).

['chris']

but it's external ftp server
and I can connect only via ftp.

[Olivier Drouin]

Much easier would be to open ssh and remotely run the command I gave you over ssh.

['chris']

on linux yes,
but the external server is AS400
and doesn't understand ssh

I CAN CONNECT ONLY VIA FTP
and no other way.

so I need a script

regards
chris

[labadie_1]

record in a file a session doing only

ls -al

then parse the file, and create a command file deleting only the files matching yout criteria.

ans issue the command file

[Paul Cross_1]

sounds like a job for expect, run from cron.

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

What you can do is to open the ftp connection in a perl script using open2, which means you have a two way connection to the shell command, in this case ftp.
Login, go the the directory and do ls -lt cm*. There find the file that is old enough to delete and then use all filename and all older to delete.

First check by running from the command line if your AS/400 ftp server supports the ls -lt and then I might give it a start by writing something for you... Or perhaps Procura sees this thread and does it...

['chris']

hi elmar

what do you mean with exactly
" old enough to delete with ls -lt cm* " ?

how old files will be deleted ?
this is very important for me to know.

kind regards
chris

[Elmar P. Kolkman · Accepted solution]

What you need to do is in the perl script find, in the output of 'ls -lt cm*', find the first file that's older then the 1 week limit you set and delete that file and everyone that comes next. In pseudo perl, it would become something like:

my found_delete=0;
my delete_from=currentdate - 1week;
while (line=readline(FI)) {
if (!found_delete) {
pd=parse_date(line);
if (pd < delete_from) {
found_delete=1;
}
}
if (found_delete) {
writeline(FO,"DEL ".getfile(line));
}
}