Stat Files Larger than 2GB with Perl

Wrestled with this for a few minutes this morning.. I am writing a process which involves retrieving file information from a store of video files (hence large files > 2GB), and had a bit of fun in the process. My lesson for today is therefore, make sure that your Perl installation is compiled with ‘large file support’. How to check? See below…

[raz@ethics-gradient perl]$perl -V:uselargefiles
uselargefiles='define';
[raz@ethics-gradient perl]$

If, as above, you get uselargefiles='define' then you are home and dry.

If you get uselargefiles='undef', it’s a case of rebuilding Perl on your machine making sure that you run configure with -Duselargefiles.