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 = '|') %]
12           [% USE mydata = datafile('/path/to/datafile', encoding = 'UTF-8') %]
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14           [% FOREACH record = mydata %]
15              [% record.this %]  [% record.that %]
16           [% END %]
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DESCRIPTION

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

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

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

70       Template::Plugin
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74perl v5.34.0                      2021-07-23     Template::Plugin::Datafile(3)
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