1IO::Scalar(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation IO::Scalar(3)
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6 IO::Scalar - IO:: interface for reading/writing a scalar
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9 Perform I/O on strings, using the basic OO interface...
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11 use 5.005;
12 use IO::Scalar;
13 $data = "My message:\n";
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15 ### Open a handle on a string, and append to it:
16 $SH = new IO::Scalar \$data;
17 $SH->print("Hello");
18 $SH->print(", world!\nBye now!\n");
19 print "The string is now: ", $data, "\n";
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21 ### Open a handle on a string, read it line-by-line, then close it:
22 $SH = new IO::Scalar \$data;
23 while (defined($_ = $SH->getline)) {
24 print "Got line: $_";
25 }
26 $SH->close;
27
28 ### Open a handle on a string, and slurp in all the lines:
29 $SH = new IO::Scalar \$data;
30 print "All lines:\n", $SH->getlines;
31
32 ### Get the current position (either of two ways):
33 $pos = $SH->getpos;
34 $offset = $SH->tell;
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36 ### Set the current position (either of two ways):
37 $SH->setpos($pos);
38 $SH->seek($offset, 0);
39
40 ### Open an anonymous temporary scalar:
41 $SH = new IO::Scalar;
42 $SH->print("Hi there!");
43 print "I printed: ", ${$SH->sref}, "\n"; ### get at value
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45 Don't like OO for your I/O? No problem. Thanks to the magic of an
46 invisible tie(), the following now works out of the box, just as it
47 does with IO::Handle:
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49 use 5.005;
50 use IO::Scalar;
51 $data = "My message:\n";
52
53 ### Open a handle on a string, and append to it:
54 $SH = new IO::Scalar \$data;
55 print $SH "Hello";
56 print $SH ", world!\nBye now!\n";
57 print "The string is now: ", $data, "\n";
58
59 ### Open a handle on a string, read it line-by-line, then close it:
60 $SH = new IO::Scalar \$data;
61 while (<$SH>) {
62 print "Got line: $_";
63 }
64 close $SH;
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66 ### Open a handle on a string, and slurp in all the lines:
67 $SH = new IO::Scalar \$data;
68 print "All lines:\n", <$SH>;
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70 ### Get the current position (WARNING: requires 5.6):
71 $offset = tell $SH;
72
73 ### Set the current position (WARNING: requires 5.6):
74 seek $SH, $offset, 0;
75
76 ### Open an anonymous temporary scalar:
77 $SH = new IO::Scalar;
78 print $SH "Hi there!";
79 print "I printed: ", ${$SH->sref}, "\n"; ### get at value
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81 And for you folks with 1.x code out there: the old tie() style still
82 works, though this is unnecessary and deprecated:
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84 use IO::Scalar;
85
86 ### Writing to a scalar...
87 my $s;
88 tie *OUT, 'IO::Scalar', \$s;
89 print OUT "line 1\nline 2\n", "line 3\n";
90 print "String is now: $s\n"
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92 ### Reading and writing an anonymous scalar...
93 tie *OUT, 'IO::Scalar';
94 print OUT "line 1\nline 2\n", "line 3\n";
95 tied(OUT)->seek(0,0);
96 while (<OUT>) {
97 print "Got line: ", $_;
98 }
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100 Stringification works, too!
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102 my $SH = new IO::Scalar \$data;
103 print $SH "Hello, ";
104 print $SH "world!";
105 print "I printed: $SH\n";
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108 This class is part of the IO::Stringy distribution; see IO::Stringy for
109 change log and general information.
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111 The IO::Scalar class implements objects which behave just like
112 IO::Handle (or FileHandle) objects, except that you may use them to
113 write to (or read from) scalars. These handles are automatically
114 "tiehandle"d (though please see "WARNINGS" for information relevant to
115 your Perl version).
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117 Basically, this:
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119 my $s;
120 $SH = new IO::Scalar \$s;
121 $SH->print("Hel", "lo, "); ### OO style
122 $SH->print("world!\n"); ### ditto
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124 Or this:
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126 my $s;
127 $SH = tie *OUT, 'IO::Scalar', \$s;
128 print OUT "Hel", "lo, "; ### non-OO style
129 print OUT "world!\n"; ### ditto
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131 Causes $s to be set to:
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133 "Hello, world!\n"
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136 Construction
137 new [ARGS...]
138 Class method. Return a new, unattached scalar handle. If any
139 arguments are given, they're sent to open().
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141 open [SCALARREF]
142 Instance method. Open the scalar handle on a new scalar, pointed
143 to by SCALARREF. If no SCALARREF is given, a "private" scalar is
144 created to hold the file data.
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146 Returns the self object on success, undefined on error.
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148 opened
149 Instance method. Is the scalar handle opened on something?
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151 close
152 Instance method. Disassociate the scalar handle from its
153 underlying scalar. Done automatically on destroy.
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155 Input and output
156 flush
157 Instance method. No-op, provided for OO compatibility.
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159 fileno
160 Instance method. No-op, returns undef
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162 getc
163 Instance method. Return the next character, or undef if none
164 remain.
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166 getline
167 Instance method. Return the next line, or undef on end of string.
168 Can safely be called in an array context. Currently, lines are
169 delimited by "\n".
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171 getlines
172 Instance method. Get all remaining lines. It will croak() if
173 accidentally called in a scalar context.
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175 print ARGS...
176 Instance method. Print ARGS to the underlying scalar.
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178 Warning: this continues to always cause a seek to the end of the
179 string, but if you perform seek()s and tell()s, it is still safer
180 to explicitly seek-to-end before subsequent print()s.
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182 read BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
183 Instance method. Read some bytes from the scalar. Returns the
184 number of bytes actually read, 0 on end-of-file, undef on error.
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186 write BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
187 Instance method. Write some bytes to the scalar.
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189 sysread BUF, LEN, [OFFSET]
190 Instance method. Read some bytes from the scalar. Returns the
191 number of bytes actually read, 0 on end-of-file, undef on error.
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193 syswrite BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
194 Instance method. Write some bytes to the scalar.
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196 Seeking/telling and other attributes
197 autoflush
198 Instance method. No-op, provided for OO compatibility.
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200 binmode
201 Instance method. No-op, provided for OO compatibility.
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203 clearerr
204 Instance method. Clear the error and EOF flags. A no-op.
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206 eof Instance method. Are we at end of file?
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208 seek OFFSET, WHENCE
209 Instance method. Seek to a given position in the stream.
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211 sysseek OFFSET, WHENCE
212 Instance method. Identical to "seek OFFSET, WHENCE", q.v.
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214 tell
215 Instance method. Return the current position in the stream, as a
216 numeric offset.
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218 setpos POS
219 Instance method. Set the current position, using the opaque value
220 returned by "getpos()".
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222 getpos
223 Instance method. Return the current position in the string, as an
224 opaque object.
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226 sref
227 Instance method. Return a reference to the underlying scalar.
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230 Eryq (eryq@zeegee.com). President, ZeeGee Software Inc
231 (http://www.zeegee.com).
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234 Dianne Skoll (dfs@roaringpenguin.com).
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237 Copyright (c) 1997 Erik (Eryq) Dorfman, ZeeGee Software, Inc. All
238 rights reserved.
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240 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
241 under the same terms as Perl itself.
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245perl v5.36.0 2022-07-22 IO::Scalar(3)