1Template::Plugin::DatafUisleer(3C)ontributed Perl DocumeTnetmaptliaotne::Plugin::Datafile(3)
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NAME

6       Template::Plugin::Datafile - Plugin to construct records from a simple
7       data file
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SYNOPSIS

10           [% USE mydata = datafile('/path/to/datafile') %]
11           [% USE mydata = datafile('/path/to/datafile', delim = '|') %]
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13           [% FOREACH record = mydata %]
14              [% record.this %]  [% record.that %]
15           [% END %]
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DESCRIPTION

18       This plugin provides a simple facility to construct a list of hash
19       references, each of which represents a data record of known structure,
20       from a data file.
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22           [% USE datafile(filename) %]
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24       A absolute filename must be specified (for this initial implementation
25       at least - in a future version it might also use the "INCLUDE_PATH").
26       An optional "delim" parameter may also be provided to specify an
27       alternate delimiter character.
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29           [% USE userlist = datafile('/path/to/file/users')     %]
30           [% USE things   = datafile('items', delim = '|') %]
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32       The format of the file is intentionally simple.  The first line defines
33       the field names, delimited by colons with optional surrounding
34       whitespace.  Subsequent lines then defines records containing data
35       items, also delimited by colons.  e.g.
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37           id : name : email : tel
38           abw : Andy Wardley : abw@tt2.org : 555-1234
39           sam : Simon Matthews : sam@tt2.org : 555-9876
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41       Each line is read, split into composite fields, and then used to
42       initialise a hash array containing the field names as relevant keys.
43       The plugin returns a blessed list reference containing the hash
44       references in the order as defined in the file.
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46           [% FOREACH user = userlist %]
47              [% user.id %]: [% user.name %]
48           [% END %]
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50       The first line of the file must contain the field definitions.  After
51       the first line, blank lines will be ignored, along with comment line
52       which start with a '"#"'.
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BUGS

55       Should handle file names relative to "INCLUDE_PATH".  Doesn't permit
56       use of '":"' in a field.  Some escaping mechanism is required.
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AUTHOR

59       Andy Wardley <abw@wardley.org> <http://wardley.org/>
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62       Copyright (C) 1996-2007 Andy Wardley.  All Rights Reserved.
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64       This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
65       under the same terms as Perl itself.
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SEE ALSO

68       Template::Plugin
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72perl v5.10.1                      2008-11-13     Template::Plugin::Datafile(3)
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