1PERLFORM(1)            Perl Programmers Reference Guide            PERLFORM(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       perlform - Perl formats
7

DESCRIPTION

9       Perl has a mechanism to help you generate simple reports and charts.
10       To facilitate this, Perl helps you code up your output page close to
11       how it will look when it's printed.  It can keep track of things like
12       how many lines are on a page, what page you're on, when to print page
13       headers, etc.  Keywords are borrowed from FORTRAN: format() to declare
14       and write() to execute; see their entries in perlfunc.  Fortunately,
15       the layout is much more legible, more like BASIC's PRINT USING
16       statement.  Think of it as a poor man's nroff(1).
17
18       Formats, like packages and subroutines, are declared rather than
19       executed, so they may occur at any point in your program.  (Usually
20       it's best to keep them all together though.) They have their own
21       namespace apart from all the other "types" in Perl.  This means that if
22       you have a function named "Foo", it is not the same thing as having a
23       format named "Foo".  However, the default name for the format
24       associated with a given filehandle is the same as the name of the
25       filehandle.  Thus, the default format for STDOUT is named "STDOUT", and
26       the default format for filehandle TEMP is named "TEMP".  They just look
27       the same.  They aren't.
28
29       Output record formats are declared as follows:
30
31           format NAME =
32           FORMLIST
33           .
34
35       If the name is omitted, format "STDOUT" is defined. A single "." in
36       column 1 is used to terminate a format.  FORMLIST consists of a
37       sequence of lines, each of which may be one of three types:
38
39       1.  A comment, indicated by putting a '#' in the first column.
40
41       2.  A "picture" line giving the format for one output line.
42
43       3.  An argument line supplying values to plug into the previous picture
44           line.
45
46       Picture lines contain output field definitions, intermingled with
47       literal text. These lines do not undergo any kind of variable
48       interpolation.  Field definitions are made up from a set of characters,
49       for starting and extending a field to its desired width. This is the
50       complete set of characters for field definitions:
51
52          @    start of regular field
53          ^    start of special field
54          <    pad character for left justification
55          |    pad character for centering
56          >    pad character for right justification
57          #    pad character for a right-justified numeric field
58          0    instead of first #: pad number with leading zeroes
59          .    decimal point within a numeric field
60          ...  terminate a text field, show "..." as truncation evidence
61          @*   variable width field for a multi-line value
62          ^*   variable width field for next line of a multi-line value
63          ~    suppress line with all fields empty
64          ~~   repeat line until all fields are exhausted
65
66       Each field in a picture line starts with either "@" (at) or "^"
67       (caret), indicating what we'll call, respectively, a "regular" or
68       "special" field.  The choice of pad characters determines whether a
69       field is textual or numeric. The tilde operators are not part of a
70       field.  Let's look at the various possibilities in detail.
71
72   Text Fields
73       The length of the field is supplied by padding out the field with
74       multiple "<", ">", or "|" characters to specify a non-numeric field
75       with, respectively, left justification, right justification, or
76       centering.  For a regular field, the value (up to the first newline) is
77       taken and printed according to the selected justification, truncating
78       excess characters.  If you terminate a text field with "...", three
79       dots will be shown if the value is truncated. A special text field may
80       be used to do rudimentary multi-line text block filling; see "Using
81       Fill Mode" for details.
82
83          Example:
84             format STDOUT =
85             @<<<<<<   @||||||   @>>>>>>
86             "left",   "middle", "right"
87             .
88          Output:
89             left      middle    right
90
91   Numeric Fields
92       Using "#" as a padding character specifies a numeric field, with right
93       justification. An optional "." defines the position of the decimal
94       point. With a "0" (zero) instead of the first "#", the formatted number
95       will be padded with leading zeroes if necessary.  A special numeric
96       field is blanked out if the value is undefined.  If the resulting value
97       would exceed the width specified the field is filled with "#" as
98       overflow evidence.
99
100          Example:
101             format STDOUT =
102             @###   @.###   @##.###  @###   @###   ^####
103              42,   3.1415,  undef,    0, 10000,   undef
104             .
105          Output:
106               42   3.142     0.000     0   ####
107
108   The Field @* for Variable-Width Multi-Line Text
109       The field "@*" can be used for printing multi-line, nontruncated
110       values; it should (but need not) appear by itself on a line. A final
111       line feed is chomped off, but all other characters are emitted
112       verbatim.
113
114   The Field ^* for Variable-Width One-line-at-a-time Text
115       Like "@*", this is a variable-width field. The value supplied must be a
116       scalar variable. Perl puts the first line (up to the first "\n") of the
117       text into the field, and then chops off the front of the string so that
118       the next time the variable is referenced, more of the text can be
119       printed.  The variable will not be restored.
120
121          Example:
122             $text = "line 1\nline 2\nline 3";
123             format STDOUT =
124             Text: ^*
125                   $text
126             ~~    ^*
127                   $text
128             .
129          Output:
130             Text: line 1
131                   line 2
132                   line 3
133
134   Specifying Values
135       The values are specified on the following format line in the same order
136       as the picture fields.  The expressions providing the values must be
137       separated by commas.  They are all evaluated in a list context before
138       the line is processed, so a single list expression could produce
139       multiple list elements.  The expressions may be spread out to more than
140       one line if enclosed in braces.  If so, the opening brace must be the
141       first token on the first line.  If an expression evaluates to a number
142       with a decimal part, and if the corresponding picture specifies that
143       the decimal part should appear in the output (that is, any picture
144       except multiple "#" characters without an embedded "."), the character
145       used for the decimal point is determined by the current LC_NUMERIC
146       locale if "use locale" is in effect.  This means that, if, for example,
147       the run-time environment happens to specify a German locale, "," will
148       be used instead of the default ".".  See perllocale and "WARNINGS" for
149       more information.
150
151   Using Fill Mode
152       On text fields the caret enables a kind of fill mode.  Instead of an
153       arbitrary expression, the value supplied must be a scalar variable that
154       contains a text string.  Perl puts the next portion of the text into
155       the field, and then chops off the front of the string so that the next
156       time the variable is referenced, more of the text can be printed.
157       (Yes, this means that the variable itself is altered during execution
158       of the write() call, and is not restored.)  The next portion of text is
159       determined by a crude line-breaking algorithm. You may use the carriage
160       return character ("\r") to force a line break. You can change which
161       characters are legal to break on by changing the variable $: (that's
162       $FORMAT_LINE_BREAK_CHARACTERS if you're using the English module) to a
163       list of the desired characters.
164
165       Normally you would use a sequence of fields in a vertical stack
166       associated with the same scalar variable to print out a block of text.
167       You might wish to end the final field with the text "...", which will
168       appear in the output if the text was too long to appear in its
169       entirety.
170
171   Suppressing Lines Where All Fields Are Void
172       Using caret fields can produce lines where all fields are blank. You
173       can suppress such lines by putting a "~" (tilde) character anywhere in
174       the line.  The tilde will be translated to a space upon output.
175
176   Repeating Format Lines
177       If you put two contiguous tilde characters "~~" anywhere into a line,
178       the line will be repeated until all the fields on the line are
179       exhausted, i.e. undefined. For special (caret) text fields this will
180       occur sooner or later, but if you use a text field of the at variety,
181       the  expression you supply had better not give the same value every
182       time forever! ("shift(@f)" is a simple example that would work.)  Don't
183       use a regular (at) numeric field in such lines, because it will never
184       go blank.
185
186   Top of Form Processing
187       Top-of-form processing is by default handled by a format with the same
188       name as the current filehandle with "_TOP" concatenated to it.  It's
189       triggered at the top of each page.  See "write" in perlfunc.
190
191       Examples:
192
193        # a report on the /etc/passwd file
194        format STDOUT_TOP =
195                                Passwd File
196        Name                Login    Office   Uid   Gid Home
197        ------------------------------------------------------------------
198        .
199        format STDOUT =
200        @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @||||||| @<<<<<<@>>>> @>>>> @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
201        $name,              $login,  $office,$uid,$gid, $home
202        .
203
204
205        # a report from a bug report form
206        format STDOUT_TOP =
207                                Bug Reports
208        @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<     @|||         @>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
209        $system,                      $%,         $date
210        ------------------------------------------------------------------
211        .
212        format STDOUT =
213        Subject: @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
214                 $subject
215        Index: @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
216               $index,                       $description
217        Priority: @<<<<<<<<<< Date: @<<<<<<< ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
218                  $priority,        $date,   $description
219        From: @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
220              $from,                         $description
221        Assigned to: @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
222                     $programmer,            $description
223        ~                                    ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
224                                             $description
225        ~                                    ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
226                                             $description
227        ~                                    ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
228                                             $description
229        ~                                    ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
230                                             $description
231        ~                                    ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<...
232                                             $description
233        .
234
235       It is possible to intermix print()s with write()s on the same output
236       channel, but you'll have to handle "$-" ($FORMAT_LINES_LEFT) yourself.
237
238   Format Variables
239       The current format name is stored in the variable $~ ($FORMAT_NAME),
240       and the current top of form format name is in $^ ($FORMAT_TOP_NAME).
241       The current output page number is stored in $% ($FORMAT_PAGE_NUMBER),
242       and the number of lines on the page is in $= ($FORMAT_LINES_PER_PAGE).
243       Whether to autoflush output on this handle is stored in $|
244       ($OUTPUT_AUTOFLUSH).  The string output before each top of page (except
245       the first) is stored in $^L ($FORMAT_FORMFEED).  These variables are
246       set on a per-filehandle basis, so you'll need to select() into a
247       different one to affect them:
248
249           select((select(OUTF),
250                   $~ = "My_Other_Format",
251                   $^ = "My_Top_Format"
252                  )[0]);
253
254       Pretty ugly, eh?  It's a common idiom though, so don't be too surprised
255       when you see it.  You can at least use a temporary variable to hold the
256       previous filehandle: (this is a much better approach in general,
257       because not only does legibility improve, you now have an intermediary
258       stage in the expression to single-step the debugger through):
259
260           $ofh = select(OUTF);
261           $~ = "My_Other_Format";
262           $^ = "My_Top_Format";
263           select($ofh);
264
265       If you use the English module, you can even read the variable names:
266
267           use English;
268           $ofh = select(OUTF);
269           $FORMAT_NAME     = "My_Other_Format";
270           $FORMAT_TOP_NAME = "My_Top_Format";
271           select($ofh);
272
273       But you still have those funny select()s.  So just use the FileHandle
274       module.  Now, you can access these special variables using lowercase
275       method names instead:
276
277           use FileHandle;
278           format_name     OUTF "My_Other_Format";
279           format_top_name OUTF "My_Top_Format";
280
281       Much better!
282

NOTES

284       Because the values line may contain arbitrary expressions (for at
285       fields, not caret fields), you can farm out more sophisticated
286       processing to other functions, like sprintf() or one of your own.  For
287       example:
288
289           format Ident =
290               @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
291               &commify($n)
292           .
293
294       To get a real at or caret into the field, do this:
295
296           format Ident =
297           I have an @ here.
298                   "@"
299           .
300
301       To center a whole line of text, do something like this:
302
303           format Ident =
304           @|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
305                   "Some text line"
306           .
307
308       There is no builtin way to say "float this to the right hand side of
309       the page, however wide it is."  You have to specify where it goes.  The
310       truly desperate can generate their own format on the fly, based on the
311       current number of columns, and then eval() it:
312
313           $format  = "format STDOUT = \n"
314                    . '^' . '<' x $cols . "\n"
315                    . '$entry' . "\n"
316                    . "\t^" . "<" x ($cols-8) . "~~\n"
317                    . '$entry' . "\n"
318                    . ".\n";
319           print $format if $Debugging;
320           eval $format;
321           die $@ if $@;
322
323       Which would generate a format looking something like this:
324
325        format STDOUT =
326        ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
327        $entry
328                ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<~~
329        $entry
330        .
331
332       Here's a little program that's somewhat like fmt(1):
333
334        format =
335        ^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ~~
336        $_
337
338        .
339
340        $/ = '';
341        while (<>) {
342            s/\s*\n\s*/ /g;
343            write;
344        }
345
346   Footers
347       While $FORMAT_TOP_NAME contains the name of the current header format,
348       there is no corresponding mechanism to automatically do the same thing
349       for a footer.  Not knowing how big a format is going to be until you
350       evaluate it is one of the major problems.  It's on the TODO list.
351
352       Here's one strategy:  If you have a fixed-size footer, you can get
353       footers by checking $FORMAT_LINES_LEFT before each write() and print
354       the footer yourself if necessary.
355
356       Here's another strategy: Open a pipe to yourself, using "open(MYSELF,
357       "|-")" (see "open" in perlfunc) and always write() to MYSELF instead of
358       STDOUT.  Have your child process massage its STDIN to rearrange headers
359       and footers however you like.  Not very convenient, but doable.
360
361   Accessing Formatting Internals
362       For low-level access to the formatting mechanism, you may use
363       formline() and access $^A (the $ACCUMULATOR variable) directly.
364
365       For example:
366
367           $str = formline <<'END', 1,2,3;
368           @<<<  @|||  @>>>
369           END
370
371           print "Wow, I just stored '$^A' in the accumulator!\n";
372
373       Or to make an swrite() subroutine, which is to write() what sprintf()
374       is to printf(), do this:
375
376           use Carp;
377           sub swrite {
378               croak "usage: swrite PICTURE ARGS" unless @_;
379               my $format = shift;
380               $^A = "";
381               formline($format,@_);
382               return $^A;
383           }
384
385           $string = swrite(<<'END', 1, 2, 3);
386        Check me out
387        @<<<  @|||  @>>>
388        END
389           print $string;
390

WARNINGS

392       The lone dot that ends a format can also prematurely end a mail message
393       passing through a misconfigured Internet mailer (and based on
394       experience, such misconfiguration is the rule, not the exception).  So
395       when sending format code through mail, you should indent it so that the
396       format-ending dot is not on the left margin; this will prevent SMTP
397       cutoff.
398
399       Lexical variables (declared with "my") are not visible within a format
400       unless the format is declared within the scope of the lexical variable.
401
402       If a program's environment specifies an LC_NUMERIC locale and "use
403       locale" is in effect when the format is declared, the locale is used to
404       specify the decimal point character in formatted output.  Formatted
405       output cannot be controlled by "use locale" at the time when write() is
406       called. See perllocale for further discussion of locale handling.
407
408       Within strings that are to be displayed in a fixed-length text field,
409       each control character is substituted by a space. (But remember the
410       special meaning of "\r" when using fill mode.) This is done to avoid
411       misalignment when control characters "disappear" on some output media.
412
413
414
415perl v5.36.3                      2023-11-30                       PERLFORM(1)
Impressum