1File::Copy(3pm) Perl Programmers Reference Guide File::Copy(3pm)
2
6 File::Copy - Copy files or filehandles
7
9 use File::Copy;
10 copy("file1","file2") or die "Copy failed: $!";
12 copy("Copy.pm",\*STDOUT);
13 move("/dev1/fileA","/dev2/fileB");
14 use File::Copy "cp";
16 $n = FileHandle->new("/a/file","r");
18 cp($n,"x");
19
21 The File::Copy module provides two basic functions, "copy" and "move",
22 which are useful for getting the contents of a file from one place to
23 another.
24 copy
26 The "copy" function takes two parameters: a file to copy from and a
27 file to copy to. Either argument may be a string, a FileHandle
28 reference or a FileHandle glob. Obviously, if the first argument is
29 a filehandle of some sort, it will be read from, and if it is a
30 file name it will be opened for reading. Likewise, the second
31 argument will be written to (and created if need be). Trying to
32 copy a file on top of itself is a fatal error.
33 If the destination (second argument) already exists and is a
35 directory, and the source (first argument) is not a filehandle,
36 then the source file will be copied into the directory specified by
37 the destination, using the same base name as the source file. It's
38 a failure to have a filehandle as the source when the destination
39 is a directory.
40 Note that passing in files as handles instead of names may lead to
42 loss of information on some operating systems; it is recommended
43 that you use file names whenever possible. Files are opened in
44 binary mode where applicable. To get a consistent behaviour when
45 copying from a filehandle to a file, use "binmode" on the
46 filehandle.
47 An optional third parameter can be used to specify the buffer size
49 used for copying. This is the number of bytes from the first file,
50 that will be held in memory at any given time, before being written
51 to the second file. The default buffer size depends upon the file,
52 but will generally be the whole file (up to 2MB), or 1k for
53 filehandles that do not reference files (eg. sockets).
54 You may use the syntax "use File::Copy "cp"" to get at the "cp"
56 alias for this function. The syntax is exactly the same. The
57 behavior is nearly the same as well: as of version 2.15, <cp> will
58 preserve the source file's permission bits like the shell utility
59 cp(1) would do, while "copy" uses the default permissions for the
60 target file (which may depend on the process' "umask", file
61 ownership, inherited ACLs, etc.). If an error occurs in setting
62 permissions, "cp" will return 0, regardless of whether the file was
63 successfully copied.
64 move
66 The "move" function also takes two parameters: the current name and
67 the intended name of the file to be moved. If the destination
68 already exists and is a directory, and the source is not a
69 directory, then the source file will be renamed into the directory
70 specified by the destination.
71 If possible, move() will simply rename the file. Otherwise, it
73 copies the file to the new location and deletes the original. If
74 an error occurs during this copy-and-delete process, you may be
75 left with a (possibly partial) copy of the file under the
76 destination name.
77 You may use the "mv" alias for this function in the same way that
79 you may use the <cp> alias for "copy".
80 syscopy
82 File::Copy also provides the "syscopy" routine, which copies the
83 file specified in the first parameter to the file specified in the
84 second parameter, preserving OS-specific attributes and file
85 structure. For Unix systems, this is equivalent to the simple
86 "copy" routine, which doesn't preserve OS-specific attributes. For
87 VMS systems, this calls the "rmscopy" routine (see below). For
88 OS/2 systems, this calls the "syscopy" XSUB directly. For Win32
89 systems, this calls "Win32::CopyFile".
90 Special behaviour if "syscopy" is defined (OS/2, VMS and Win32):
92 If both arguments to "copy" are not file handles, then "copy" will
94 perform a "system copy" of the input file to a new output file, in
95 order to preserve file attributes, indexed file structure, etc.
96 The buffer size parameter is ignored. If either argument to "copy"
97 is a handle to an opened file, then data is copied using Perl
98 operators, and no effort is made to preserve file attributes or
99 record structure.
100 The system copy routine may also be called directly under VMS and
102 OS/2 as "File::Copy::syscopy" (or under VMS as
103 "File::Copy::rmscopy", which is the routine that does the actual
104 work for syscopy).
105 rmscopy($from,$to[,$date_flag])
107 The first and second arguments may be strings, typeglobs, typeglob
108 references, or objects inheriting from IO::Handle; they are used in
109 all cases to obtain the filespec of the input and output files,
110 respectively. The name and type of the input file are used as
111 defaults for the output file, if necessary.
112 A new version of the output file is always created, which inherits
114 the structure and RMS attributes of the input file, except for
115 owner and protections (and possibly timestamps; see below). All
116 data from the input file is copied to the output file; if either of
117 the first two parameters to "rmscopy" is a file handle, its
118 position is unchanged. (Note that this means a file handle
119 pointing to the output file will be associated with an old version
120 of that file after "rmscopy" returns, not the newly created
121 version.)
122 The third parameter is an integer flag, which tells "rmscopy" how
124 to handle timestamps. If it is < 0, none of the input file's
125 timestamps are propagated to the output file. If it is > 0, then
126 it is interpreted as a bitmask: if bit 0 (the LSB) is set, then
127 timestamps other than the revision date are propagated; if bit 1 is
128 set, the revision date is propagated. If the third parameter to
129 "rmscopy" is 0, then it behaves much like the DCL COPY command: if
130 the name or type of the output file was explicitly specified, then
131 no timestamps are propagated, but if they were taken implicitly
132 from the input filespec, then all timestamps other than the
133 revision date are propagated. If this parameter is not supplied,
134 it defaults to 0.
135 Like "copy", "rmscopy" returns 1 on success. If an error occurs,
137 it sets $!, deletes the output file, and returns 0.
138
140 All functions return 1 on success, 0 on failure. $! will be set if an
141 error was encountered.
142
144 File::Copy was written by Aaron Sherman <ajs@ajs.com> in 1995, and
145 updated by Charles Bailey <bailey@newman.upenn.edu> in 1996.
146perl v5.16.3 2013-03-04 File::Copy(3pm)