Getting File Information in Perl

You can test certain features very quickly within Perl using a series of test operators known collectively as -X tests. For example, to perform a quick test of the various permissions on a file, you might use a script like this −

#/usr/bin/perl
my $file = "/usr/test/file1.txt";
my (@description, $size);
if (-e $file) {
   push @description, 'binary' if (-B _);
   push @description, 'a socket' if (-S _);
   push @description, 'a text file' if (-T _);
   push @description, 'a block special file' if (-b _);
   push @description, 'a character special file' if (-c _);
   push @description, 'a directory' if (-d _);
   push @description, 'executable' if (-x _);
   push @description, (($size = -s _)) ? "$size bytes" : 'empty';
   print "$file is ", join(', ',@description),"\n";
}

Here is the list of features, which you can check for a file or directory −