Title: Partition information with Perl
In this assignment, you will write a Perl program that reads from a file similar to the Unix’ file
mtab (a file that contains information about the filesystem partitions). Your program will
process options and print the requested output to the standard output.
These are the specifications for your Perl program:
1. The file containing your program must be named partitionbrowser.pl
2. It must be invoked as:
partitionbrowser.pl option partition_file
The program must check that the partition_file argument is an existing and readable
file. If not, it must print a message of your choice to the standard output and exit. The
format for file partition_file and the values for the option argument are described
below.
3. File partition_file can have any arbitrary name. It must be a file of text with the following
format:
a. The file consists of an arbitrary, yet reasonable, number of lines (including,
possibly, zero lines). Each line corresponds to a partition.
b. Each line must contain four fields separated by spaces.
c. The four fields are: mount point, filesystem type, total space and used space.
d. Field mount point is a Unix filename. Field filesystem type is a string of no more
than 10 characters. Fields total space and used space are nonnegative integers
represented as strings of no more than 10 characters.
The following example is the reference specification for the format of file partition_file:
/ ext3 10317828 4439828
/usr nfs 20635656 446188
/home ext3 2885780 2265324
/var ext4 2885780 1900002
Important note: your program does not need to verify that file partition_file complies with the
specifications. You can simply assume that the file meets all the specifications given above.
4. Your program can be invoked with option: -n. In this case, it must print the number of
partitions in partition_file:
Number of partitions:
Example with the example partition_file given above:
Command line:
partitionbrowser.pl -n partition_file
4
Output:
Number of partitions: 4
In the case in which file partition_file is empty, your program will print:
No partitions found
5. Your program can be invoked with option: -u. In this case, it must print the following
string:
Used space:
The used space across all the partitions in partition_file is the sum of the used space in each
partition.
Example with the example partition_file given above:
Command line:
partitionbrowser.pl -u partition_file
Output:
Used space: 9051342
6. Your program can be invoked with option: -f. In this case, it must print the following
string:
Free space:
The free space in a partition is computed as the difference between the total space and used
space fields. The free space across all the partitions in partition_file is the sum of the free
space in each partition.
Example with the example partition_file given above:
Command line:
partitionbrowser.pl -f partition_file
Output:
Free space: 27673702
7. Your program can be invoked with option: -t filesystem type. In this case, it must print all
the mount points in file partition_file with that filesystem type. The format of filesystem
type in the option is the same as the filesystem type field in the file. The output of your
program must be:
Mount points with filesystem type :
…
Example with the example partition_file given above:
Command line:
partitionbrowser.pl -t ext3 partition_file
Output:
Mount points with filesystem type ext3:
/
/home
In the case in which the requested filesystem type does not exist in partition_file, your
program must print:
No mount points with this filesystem type
8. Your program can be invoked with option: -s. In this case, it must only print your name,
surname, student ID and date of completion of your assignment, in a format of your choice.
Please note that argument partition_file is still required.
9. If your program is invoked with any other syntax than those specified above, it must print a
message of your choice to the standard output and exit.
Examples of incorrect syntax:
partitionbrowser.pl -Z partition_file
partitionbrowser.pl -u
10. Zip your file partitionbrowser.pl into a file named
USP__.zip and submit it with the modalities specified
above. Several free zip utilities are available on the WWW.
Please be reminded that:
• this assignment must be your own work and you should not be helped by anyone to
prepare it in any way; your assignment may be tested by anti-plagiarism software that
detects superficial changes such as changing variable names, swapping lines of code and
the like.
• understanding the assignment specifications is part of the assignment itself and no
further instructions will be provided; on the other hand, whatever is not constrained
you can implement it according to your own best judgment.