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 On Mac OS (Classic), "syscopy" calls "Mac::MoreFiles::FSpFileCopy",
92 if available.
93 Special behaviour if "syscopy" is defined (OS/2, VMS and Win32):
95 If both arguments to "copy" are not file handles, then "copy" will
97 perform a "system copy" of the input file to a new output file, in
98 order to preserve file attributes, indexed file structure, etc.
99 The buffer size parameter is ignored. If either argument to "copy"
100 is a handle to an opened file, then data is copied using Perl
101 operators, and no effort is made to preserve file attributes or
102 record structure.
103 The system copy routine may also be called directly under VMS and
105 OS/2 as "File::Copy::syscopy" (or under VMS as
106 "File::Copy::rmscopy", which is the routine that does the actual
107 work for syscopy).
108 rmscopy($from,$to[,$date_flag])
110 The first and second arguments may be strings, typeglobs, typeglob
111 references, or objects inheriting from IO::Handle; they are used in
112 all cases to obtain the filespec of the input and output files,
113 respectively. The name and type of the input file are used as
114 defaults for the output file, if necessary.
115 A new version of the output file is always created, which inherits
117 the structure and RMS attributes of the input file, except for
118 owner and protections (and possibly timestamps; see below). All
119 data from the input file is copied to the output file; if either of
120 the first two parameters to "rmscopy" is a file handle, its
121 position is unchanged. (Note that this means a file handle
122 pointing to the output file will be associated with an old version
123 of that file after "rmscopy" returns, not the newly created
124 version.)
125 The third parameter is an integer flag, which tells "rmscopy" how
127 to handle timestamps. If it is < 0, none of the input file's
128 timestamps are propagated to the output file. If it is > 0, then
129 it is interpreted as a bitmask: if bit 0 (the LSB) is set, then
130 timestamps other than the revision date are propagated; if bit 1 is
131 set, the revision date is propagated. If the third parameter to
132 "rmscopy" is 0, then it behaves much like the DCL COPY command: if
133 the name or type of the output file was explicitly specified, then
134 no timestamps are propagated, but if they were taken implicitly
135 from the input filespec, then all timestamps other than the
136 revision date are propagated. If this parameter is not supplied,
137 it defaults to 0.
138 Like "copy", "rmscopy" returns 1 on success. If an error occurs,
140 it sets $!, deletes the output file, and returns 0.
141
143 All functions return 1 on success, 0 on failure. $! will be set if an
144 error was encountered.
145
147 ยท On Mac OS (Classic), the path separator is ':', not '/', and the
148 current directory is denoted as ':', not '.'. You should be careful
149 about specifying relative pathnames. While a full path always
150 begins with a volume name, a relative pathname should always begin
151 with a ':'. If specifying a volume name only, a trailing ':' is
152 required.
153 E.g.
155 copy("file1", "tmp"); # creates the file 'tmp' in the current directory
157 copy("file1", ":tmp:"); # creates :tmp:file1
158 copy("file1", ":tmp"); # same as above
159 copy("file1", "tmp"); # same as above, if 'tmp' is a directory (but don't do
160 # that, since it may cause confusion, see example #1)
161 copy("file1", "tmp:file1"); # error, since 'tmp:' is not a volume
162 copy("file1", ":tmp:file1"); # ok, partial path
163 copy("file1", "DataHD:"); # creates DataHD:file1
164 move("MacintoshHD:fileA", "DataHD:fileB"); # moves (doesn't copy) files from one
166 # volume to another
167
169 File::Copy was written by Aaron Sherman <ajs@ajs.com> in 1995, and
170 updated by Charles Bailey <bailey@newman.upenn.edu> in 1996.
171perl v5.12.4 2011-06-07 File::Copy(3pm)