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68dc0745 | 1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | ||
d92eb7b0 | 3 | perlfaq5 - Files and Formats ($Revision: 1.38 $, $Date: 1999/05/23 16:08:30 $) |
68dc0745 | 4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
6 | ||
7 | This section deals with I/O and the "f" issues: filehandles, flushing, | |
8 | formats, and footers. | |
9 | ||
5a964f20 | 10 | =head2 How do I flush/unbuffer an output filehandle? Why must I do this? |
68dc0745 | 11 | |
12 | The C standard I/O library (stdio) normally buffers characters sent to | |
13 | devices. This is done for efficiency reasons, so that there isn't a | |
14 | system call for each byte. Any time you use print() or write() in | |
15 | Perl, you go though this buffering. syswrite() circumvents stdio and | |
16 | buffering. | |
17 | ||
5a964f20 | 18 | In most stdio implementations, the type of output buffering and the size of |
68dc0745 | 19 | the buffer varies according to the type of device. Disk files are block |
20 | buffered, often with a buffer size of more than 2k. Pipes and sockets | |
21 | are often buffered with a buffer size between 1/2 and 2k. Serial devices | |
22 | (e.g. modems, terminals) are normally line-buffered, and stdio sends | |
23 | the entire line when it gets the newline. | |
24 | ||
25 | Perl does not support truly unbuffered output (except insofar as you can | |
26 | C<syswrite(OUT, $char, 1)>). What it does instead support is "command | |
27 | buffering", in which a physical write is performed after every output | |
28 | command. This isn't as hard on your system as unbuffering, but does | |
29 | get the output where you want it when you want it. | |
30 | ||
31 | If you expect characters to get to your device when you print them there, | |
5a964f20 TC |
32 | you'll want to autoflush its handle. |
33 | Use select() and the C<$|> variable to control autoflushing | |
34 | (see L<perlvar/$|> and L<perlfunc/select>): | |
35 | ||
36 | $old_fh = select(OUTPUT_HANDLE); | |
37 | $| = 1; | |
38 | select($old_fh); | |
39 | ||
40 | Or using the traditional idiom: | |
41 | ||
42 | select((select(OUTPUT_HANDLE), $| = 1)[0]); | |
43 | ||
44 | Or if don't mind slowly loading several thousand lines of module code | |
45 | just because you're afraid of the C<$|> variable: | |
68dc0745 | 46 | |
47 | use FileHandle; | |
5a964f20 | 48 | open(DEV, "+</dev/tty"); # ceci n'est pas une pipe |
68dc0745 | 49 | DEV->autoflush(1); |
50 | ||
51 | or the newer IO::* modules: | |
52 | ||
53 | use IO::Handle; | |
54 | open(DEV, ">/dev/printer"); # but is this? | |
55 | DEV->autoflush(1); | |
56 | ||
57 | or even this: | |
58 | ||
59 | use IO::Socket; # this one is kinda a pipe? | |
60 | $sock = IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr => 'www.perl.com', | |
61 | PeerPort => 'http(80)', | |
62 | Proto => 'tcp'); | |
63 | die "$!" unless $sock; | |
64 | ||
65 | $sock->autoflush(); | |
5a964f20 TC |
66 | print $sock "GET / HTTP/1.0" . "\015\012" x 2; |
67 | $document = join('', <$sock>); | |
68dc0745 | 68 | print "DOC IS: $document\n"; |
69 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
70 | Note the bizarrely hardcoded carriage return and newline in their octal |
71 | equivalents. This is the ONLY way (currently) to assure a proper flush | |
d92eb7b0 | 72 | on all platforms, including Macintosh. That's the way things work in |
5a964f20 TC |
73 | network programming: you really should specify the exact bit pattern |
74 | on the network line terminator. In practice, C<"\n\n"> often works, | |
75 | but this is not portable. | |
68dc0745 | 76 | |
5a964f20 | 77 | See L<perlfaq9> for other examples of fetching URLs over the web. |
68dc0745 | 78 | |
79 | =head2 How do I change one line in a file/delete a line in a file/insert a line in the middle of a file/append to the beginning of a file? | |
80 | ||
65acb1b1 TC |
81 | Those are operations of a text editor. Perl is not a text editor. |
82 | Perl is a programming language. You have to decompose the problem into | |
83 | low-level calls to read, write, open, close, and seek. | |
84 | ||
68dc0745 | 85 | Although humans have an easy time thinking of a text file as being a |
65acb1b1 TC |
86 | sequence of lines that operates much like a stack of playing cards -- or |
87 | punch cards -- computers usually see the text file as a sequence of bytes. | |
88 | In general, there's no direct way for Perl to seek to a particular line | |
89 | of a file, insert text into a file, or remove text from a file. | |
68dc0745 | 90 | |
5a964f20 TC |
91 | (There are exceptions in special circumstances. You can add or remove at |
92 | the very end of the file. Another is replacing a sequence of bytes with | |
93 | another sequence of the same length. Another is using the C<$DB_RECNO> | |
94 | array bindings as documented in L<DB_File>. Yet another is manipulating | |
95 | files with all lines the same length.) | |
68dc0745 | 96 | |
97 | The general solution is to create a temporary copy of the text file with | |
5a964f20 TC |
98 | the changes you want, then copy that over the original. This assumes |
99 | no locking. | |
68dc0745 | 100 | |
101 | $old = $file; | |
102 | $new = "$file.tmp.$$"; | |
65acb1b1 | 103 | $bak = "$file.orig"; |
68dc0745 | 104 | |
105 | open(OLD, "< $old") or die "can't open $old: $!"; | |
106 | open(NEW, "> $new") or die "can't open $new: $!"; | |
107 | ||
108 | # Correct typos, preserving case | |
109 | while (<OLD>) { | |
110 | s/\b(p)earl\b/${1}erl/i; | |
111 | (print NEW $_) or die "can't write to $new: $!"; | |
112 | } | |
113 | ||
114 | close(OLD) or die "can't close $old: $!"; | |
115 | close(NEW) or die "can't close $new: $!"; | |
116 | ||
117 | rename($old, $bak) or die "can't rename $old to $bak: $!"; | |
118 | rename($new, $old) or die "can't rename $new to $old: $!"; | |
119 | ||
120 | Perl can do this sort of thing for you automatically with the C<-i> | |
46fc3d4c | 121 | command-line switch or the closely-related C<$^I> variable (see |
68dc0745 | 122 | L<perlrun> for more details). Note that |
123 | C<-i> may require a suffix on some non-Unix systems; see the | |
124 | platform-specific documentation that came with your port. | |
125 | ||
126 | # Renumber a series of tests from the command line | |
127 | perl -pi -e 's/(^\s+test\s+)\d+/ $1 . ++$count /e' t/op/taint.t | |
128 | ||
129 | # form a script | |
65acb1b1 | 130 | local($^I, @ARGV) = ('.orig', glob("*.c")); |
68dc0745 | 131 | while (<>) { |
132 | if ($. == 1) { | |
133 | print "This line should appear at the top of each file\n"; | |
134 | } | |
135 | s/\b(p)earl\b/${1}erl/i; # Correct typos, preserving case | |
136 | print; | |
137 | close ARGV if eof; # Reset $. | |
138 | } | |
139 | ||
140 | If you need to seek to an arbitrary line of a file that changes | |
141 | infrequently, you could build up an index of byte positions of where | |
142 | the line ends are in the file. If the file is large, an index of | |
143 | every tenth or hundredth line end would allow you to seek and read | |
144 | fairly efficiently. If the file is sorted, try the look.pl library | |
145 | (part of the standard perl distribution). | |
146 | ||
147 | In the unique case of deleting lines at the end of a file, you | |
148 | can use tell() and truncate(). The following code snippet deletes | |
149 | the last line of a file without making a copy or reading the | |
150 | whole file into memory: | |
151 | ||
152 | open (FH, "+< $file"); | |
54310121 | 153 | while ( <FH> ) { $addr = tell(FH) unless eof(FH) } |
68dc0745 | 154 | truncate(FH, $addr); |
155 | ||
156 | Error checking is left as an exercise for the reader. | |
157 | ||
158 | =head2 How do I count the number of lines in a file? | |
159 | ||
160 | One fairly efficient way is to count newlines in the file. The | |
161 | following program uses a feature of tr///, as documented in L<perlop>. | |
162 | If your text file doesn't end with a newline, then it's not really a | |
163 | proper text file, so this may report one fewer line than you expect. | |
164 | ||
165 | $lines = 0; | |
166 | open(FILE, $filename) or die "Can't open `$filename': $!"; | |
167 | while (sysread FILE, $buffer, 4096) { | |
168 | $lines += ($buffer =~ tr/\n//); | |
169 | } | |
170 | close FILE; | |
171 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
172 | This assumes no funny games with newline translations. |
173 | ||
68dc0745 | 174 | =head2 How do I make a temporary file name? |
175 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
176 | Use the C<new_tmpfile> class method from the IO::File module to get a |
177 | filehandle opened for reading and writing. Use this if you don't | |
178 | need to know the file's name. | |
68dc0745 | 179 | |
65acb1b1 | 180 | use IO::File; |
5a964f20 | 181 | $fh = IO::File->new_tmpfile() |
65acb1b1 | 182 | or die "Unable to make new temporary file: $!"; |
5a964f20 TC |
183 | |
184 | Or you can use the C<tmpnam> function from the POSIX module to get a | |
185 | filename that you then open yourself. Use this if you do need to know | |
186 | the file's name. | |
187 | ||
188 | use Fcntl; | |
189 | use POSIX qw(tmpnam); | |
190 | ||
191 | # try new temporary filenames until we get one that didn't already | |
192 | # exist; the check should be unnecessary, but you can't be too careful | |
193 | do { $name = tmpnam() } | |
194 | until sysopen(FH, $name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_EXCL); | |
195 | ||
196 | # install atexit-style handler so that when we exit or die, | |
197 | # we automatically delete this temporary file | |
198 | END { unlink($name) or die "Couldn't unlink $name : $!" } | |
199 | ||
200 | # now go on to use the file ... | |
201 | ||
202 | If you're committed to doing this by hand, use the process ID and/or | |
203 | the current time-value. If you need to have many temporary files in | |
204 | one process, use a counter: | |
205 | ||
206 | BEGIN { | |
68dc0745 | 207 | use Fcntl; |
208 | my $temp_dir = -d '/tmp' ? '/tmp' : $ENV{TMP} || $ENV{TEMP}; | |
209 | my $base_name = sprintf("%s/%d-%d-0000", $temp_dir, $$, time()); | |
210 | sub temp_file { | |
5a964f20 | 211 | local *FH; |
68dc0745 | 212 | my $count = 0; |
5a964f20 | 213 | until (defined(fileno(FH)) || $count++ > 100) { |
68dc0745 | 214 | $base_name =~ s/-(\d+)$/"-" . (1 + $1)/e; |
5a964f20 | 215 | sysopen(FH, $base_name, O_WRONLY|O_EXCL|O_CREAT); |
68dc0745 | 216 | } |
5a964f20 TC |
217 | if (defined(fileno(FH)) |
218 | return (*FH, $base_name); | |
68dc0745 | 219 | } else { |
220 | return (); | |
221 | } | |
222 | } | |
223 | } | |
224 | ||
68dc0745 | 225 | =head2 How can I manipulate fixed-record-length files? |
226 | ||
5a964f20 | 227 | The most efficient way is using pack() and unpack(). This is faster than |
65acb1b1 | 228 | using substr() when taking many, many strings. It is slower for just a few. |
5a964f20 TC |
229 | |
230 | Here is a sample chunk of code to break up and put back together again | |
231 | some fixed-format input lines, in this case from the output of a normal, | |
232 | Berkeley-style ps: | |
68dc0745 | 233 | |
234 | # sample input line: | |
235 | # 15158 p5 T 0:00 perl /home/tchrist/scripts/now-what | |
236 | $PS_T = 'A6 A4 A7 A5 A*'; | |
237 | open(PS, "ps|"); | |
5a964f20 | 238 | print scalar <PS>; |
68dc0745 | 239 | while (<PS>) { |
240 | ($pid, $tt, $stat, $time, $command) = unpack($PS_T, $_); | |
241 | for $var (qw!pid tt stat time command!) { | |
242 | print "$var: <$$var>\n"; | |
243 | } | |
244 | print 'line=', pack($PS_T, $pid, $tt, $stat, $time, $command), | |
245 | "\n"; | |
246 | } | |
247 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
248 | We've used C<$$var> in a way that forbidden by C<use strict 'refs'>. |
249 | That is, we've promoted a string to a scalar variable reference using | |
250 | symbolic references. This is ok in small programs, but doesn't scale | |
251 | well. It also only works on global variables, not lexicals. | |
252 | ||
68dc0745 | 253 | =head2 How can I make a filehandle local to a subroutine? How do I pass filehandles between subroutines? How do I make an array of filehandles? |
254 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
255 | The fastest, simplest, and most direct way is to localize the typeglob |
256 | of the filehandle in question: | |
68dc0745 | 257 | |
5a964f20 | 258 | local *TmpHandle; |
68dc0745 | 259 | |
5a964f20 TC |
260 | Typeglobs are fast (especially compared with the alternatives) and |
261 | reasonably easy to use, but they also have one subtle drawback. If you | |
262 | had, for example, a function named TmpHandle(), or a variable named | |
263 | %TmpHandle, you just hid it from yourself. | |
68dc0745 | 264 | |
68dc0745 | 265 | sub findme { |
5a964f20 TC |
266 | local *HostFile; |
267 | open(HostFile, "</etc/hosts") or die "no /etc/hosts: $!"; | |
268 | local $_; # <- VERY IMPORTANT | |
269 | while (<HostFile>) { | |
68dc0745 | 270 | print if /\b127\.(0\.0\.)?1\b/; |
271 | } | |
5a964f20 TC |
272 | # *HostFile automatically closes/disappears here |
273 | } | |
274 | ||
275 | Here's how to use this in a loop to open and store a bunch of | |
276 | filehandles. We'll use as values of the hash an ordered | |
277 | pair to make it easy to sort the hash in insertion order. | |
278 | ||
279 | @names = qw(motd termcap passwd hosts); | |
280 | my $i = 0; | |
281 | foreach $filename (@names) { | |
282 | local *FH; | |
283 | open(FH, "/etc/$filename") || die "$filename: $!"; | |
284 | $file{$filename} = [ $i++, *FH ]; | |
68dc0745 | 285 | } |
286 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
287 | # Using the filehandles in the array |
288 | foreach $name (sort { $file{$a}[0] <=> $file{$b}[0] } keys %file) { | |
289 | my $fh = $file{$name}[1]; | |
290 | my $line = <$fh>; | |
291 | print "$name $. $line"; | |
292 | } | |
293 | ||
c8db1d39 | 294 | For passing filehandles to functions, the easiest way is to |
65acb1b1 TC |
295 | preface them with a star, as in func(*STDIN). See L<perlfaq7/"Passing |
296 | Filehandles"> for details. | |
c8db1d39 | 297 | |
65acb1b1 | 298 | If you want to create many anonymous handles, you should check out the |
5a964f20 TC |
299 | Symbol, FileHandle, or IO::Handle (etc.) modules. Here's the equivalent |
300 | code with Symbol::gensym, which is reasonably light-weight: | |
301 | ||
302 | foreach $filename (@names) { | |
303 | use Symbol; | |
304 | my $fh = gensym(); | |
305 | open($fh, "/etc/$filename") || die "open /etc/$filename: $!"; | |
306 | $file{$filename} = [ $i++, $fh ]; | |
307 | } | |
68dc0745 | 308 | |
65acb1b1 TC |
309 | Or here using the semi-object-oriented FileHandle module, which certainly |
310 | isn't light-weight: | |
46fc3d4c | 311 | |
312 | use FileHandle; | |
313 | ||
46fc3d4c | 314 | foreach $filename (@names) { |
5a964f20 TC |
315 | my $fh = FileHandle->new("/etc/$filename") or die "$filename: $!"; |
316 | $file{$filename} = [ $i++, $fh ]; | |
46fc3d4c | 317 | } |
318 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
319 | Please understand that whether the filehandle happens to be a (probably |
320 | localized) typeglob or an anonymous handle from one of the modules, | |
321 | in no way affects the bizarre rules for managing indirect handles. | |
322 | See the next question. | |
323 | ||
324 | =head2 How can I use a filehandle indirectly? | |
325 | ||
326 | An indirect filehandle is using something other than a symbol | |
327 | in a place that a filehandle is expected. Here are ways | |
328 | to get those: | |
329 | ||
330 | $fh = SOME_FH; # bareword is strict-subs hostile | |
331 | $fh = "SOME_FH"; # strict-refs hostile; same package only | |
332 | $fh = *SOME_FH; # typeglob | |
333 | $fh = \*SOME_FH; # ref to typeglob (bless-able) | |
334 | $fh = *SOME_FH{IO}; # blessed IO::Handle from *SOME_FH typeglob | |
335 | ||
336 | Or to use the C<new> method from the FileHandle or IO modules to | |
337 | create an anonymous filehandle, store that in a scalar variable, | |
338 | and use it as though it were a normal filehandle. | |
339 | ||
340 | use FileHandle; | |
341 | $fh = FileHandle->new(); | |
342 | ||
343 | use IO::Handle; # 5.004 or higher | |
344 | $fh = IO::Handle->new(); | |
345 | ||
346 | Then use any of those as you would a normal filehandle. Anywhere that | |
347 | Perl is expecting a filehandle, an indirect filehandle may be used | |
348 | instead. An indirect filehandle is just a scalar variable that contains | |
368c9434 | 349 | a filehandle. Functions like C<print>, C<open>, C<seek>, or |
c47ff5f1 | 350 | the C<< <FH> >> diamond operator will accept either a read filehandle |
5a964f20 TC |
351 | or a scalar variable containing one: |
352 | ||
353 | ($ifh, $ofh, $efh) = (*STDIN, *STDOUT, *STDERR); | |
354 | print $ofh "Type it: "; | |
355 | $got = <$ifh> | |
356 | print $efh "What was that: $got"; | |
357 | ||
368c9434 | 358 | If you're passing a filehandle to a function, you can write |
5a964f20 TC |
359 | the function in two ways: |
360 | ||
361 | sub accept_fh { | |
362 | my $fh = shift; | |
363 | print $fh "Sending to indirect filehandle\n"; | |
46fc3d4c | 364 | } |
365 | ||
5a964f20 | 366 | Or it can localize a typeglob and use the filehandle directly: |
46fc3d4c | 367 | |
5a964f20 TC |
368 | sub accept_fh { |
369 | local *FH = shift; | |
370 | print FH "Sending to localized filehandle\n"; | |
46fc3d4c | 371 | } |
372 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
373 | Both styles work with either objects or typeglobs of real filehandles. |
374 | (They might also work with strings under some circumstances, but this | |
375 | is risky.) | |
376 | ||
377 | accept_fh(*STDOUT); | |
378 | accept_fh($handle); | |
379 | ||
380 | In the examples above, we assigned the filehandle to a scalar variable | |
381 | before using it. That is because only simple scalar variables, | |
382 | not expressions or subscripts into hashes or arrays, can be used with | |
383 | built-ins like C<print>, C<printf>, or the diamond operator. These are | |
384 | illegal and won't even compile: | |
385 | ||
386 | @fd = (*STDIN, *STDOUT, *STDERR); | |
387 | print $fd[1] "Type it: "; # WRONG | |
388 | $got = <$fd[0]> # WRONG | |
389 | print $fd[2] "What was that: $got"; # WRONG | |
390 | ||
391 | With C<print> and C<printf>, you get around this by using a block and | |
392 | an expression where you would place the filehandle: | |
393 | ||
394 | print { $fd[1] } "funny stuff\n"; | |
395 | printf { $fd[1] } "Pity the poor %x.\n", 3_735_928_559; | |
396 | # Pity the poor deadbeef. | |
397 | ||
398 | That block is a proper block like any other, so you can put more | |
399 | complicated code there. This sends the message out to one of two places: | |
400 | ||
401 | $ok = -x "/bin/cat"; | |
402 | print { $ok ? $fd[1] : $fd[2] } "cat stat $ok\n"; | |
403 | print { $fd[ 1+ ($ok || 0) ] } "cat stat $ok\n"; | |
404 | ||
405 | This approach of treating C<print> and C<printf> like object methods | |
406 | calls doesn't work for the diamond operator. That's because it's a | |
407 | real operator, not just a function with a comma-less argument. Assuming | |
408 | you've been storing typeglobs in your structure as we did above, you | |
409 | can use the built-in function named C<readline> to reads a record just | |
c47ff5f1 | 410 | as C<< <> >> does. Given the initialization shown above for @fd, this |
5a964f20 TC |
411 | would work, but only because readline() require a typeglob. It doesn't |
412 | work with objects or strings, which might be a bug we haven't fixed yet. | |
413 | ||
414 | $got = readline($fd[0]); | |
415 | ||
416 | Let it be noted that the flakiness of indirect filehandles is not | |
417 | related to whether they're strings, typeglobs, objects, or anything else. | |
418 | It's the syntax of the fundamental operators. Playing the object | |
419 | game doesn't help you at all here. | |
46fc3d4c | 420 | |
68dc0745 | 421 | =head2 How can I set up a footer format to be used with write()? |
422 | ||
54310121 | 423 | There's no builtin way to do this, but L<perlform> has a couple of |
68dc0745 | 424 | techniques to make it possible for the intrepid hacker. |
425 | ||
426 | =head2 How can I write() into a string? | |
427 | ||
65acb1b1 | 428 | See L<perlform/"Accessing Formatting Internals"> for an swrite() function. |
68dc0745 | 429 | |
430 | =head2 How can I output my numbers with commas added? | |
431 | ||
432 | This one will do it for you: | |
433 | ||
434 | sub commify { | |
435 | local $_ = shift; | |
65acb1b1 | 436 | 1 while s/^([-+]?\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/; |
68dc0745 | 437 | return $_; |
438 | } | |
439 | ||
440 | $n = 23659019423.2331; | |
441 | print "GOT: ", commify($n), "\n"; | |
442 | ||
443 | GOT: 23,659,019,423.2331 | |
444 | ||
445 | You can't just: | |
446 | ||
65acb1b1 | 447 | s/^([-+]?\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/g; |
68dc0745 | 448 | |
449 | because you have to put the comma in and then recalculate your | |
450 | position. | |
451 | ||
46fc3d4c | 452 | Alternatively, this commifies all numbers in a line regardless of |
453 | whether they have decimal portions, are preceded by + or -, or | |
454 | whatever: | |
455 | ||
456 | # from Andrew Johnson <ajohnson@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> | |
457 | sub commify { | |
458 | my $input = shift; | |
459 | $input = reverse $input; | |
460 | $input =~ s<(\d\d\d)(?=\d)(?!\d*\.)><$1,>g; | |
65acb1b1 | 461 | return scalar reverse $input; |
46fc3d4c | 462 | } |
463 | ||
68dc0745 | 464 | =head2 How can I translate tildes (~) in a filename? |
465 | ||
c47ff5f1 | 466 | Use the <> (glob()) operator, documented in L<perlfunc>. This |
68dc0745 | 467 | requires that you have a shell installed that groks tildes, meaning |
468 | csh or tcsh or (some versions of) ksh, and thus may have portability | |
469 | problems. The Glob::KGlob module (available from CPAN) gives more | |
470 | portable glob functionality. | |
471 | ||
472 | Within Perl, you may use this directly: | |
473 | ||
474 | $filename =~ s{ | |
475 | ^ ~ # find a leading tilde | |
476 | ( # save this in $1 | |
477 | [^/] # a non-slash character | |
478 | * # repeated 0 or more times (0 means me) | |
479 | ) | |
480 | }{ | |
481 | $1 | |
482 | ? (getpwnam($1))[7] | |
483 | : ( $ENV{HOME} || $ENV{LOGDIR} ) | |
484 | }ex; | |
485 | ||
5a964f20 | 486 | =head2 How come when I open a file read-write it wipes it out? |
68dc0745 | 487 | |
488 | Because you're using something like this, which truncates the file and | |
489 | I<then> gives you read-write access: | |
490 | ||
5a964f20 | 491 | open(FH, "+> /path/name"); # WRONG (almost always) |
68dc0745 | 492 | |
493 | Whoops. You should instead use this, which will fail if the file | |
d92eb7b0 GS |
494 | doesn't exist. |
495 | ||
496 | open(FH, "+< /path/name"); # open for update | |
497 | ||
c47ff5f1 | 498 | Using ">" always clobbers or creates. Using "<" never does |
d92eb7b0 | 499 | either. The "+" doesn't change this. |
68dc0745 | 500 | |
5a964f20 TC |
501 | Here are examples of many kinds of file opens. Those using sysopen() |
502 | all assume | |
68dc0745 | 503 | |
5a964f20 | 504 | use Fcntl; |
68dc0745 | 505 | |
5a964f20 | 506 | To open file for reading: |
68dc0745 | 507 | |
5a964f20 TC |
508 | open(FH, "< $path") || die $!; |
509 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_RDONLY) || die $!; | |
510 | ||
511 | To open file for writing, create new file if needed or else truncate old file: | |
512 | ||
513 | open(FH, "> $path") || die $!; | |
514 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_CREAT) || die $!; | |
515 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_CREAT, 0666) || die $!; | |
516 | ||
517 | To open file for writing, create new file, file must not exist: | |
518 | ||
519 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_WRONLY|O_EXCL|O_CREAT) || die $!; | |
520 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_WRONLY|O_EXCL|O_CREAT, 0666) || die $!; | |
521 | ||
522 | To open file for appending, create if necessary: | |
523 | ||
524 | open(FH, ">> $path") || die $!; | |
525 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_WRONLY|O_APPEND|O_CREAT) || die $!; | |
526 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_WRONLY|O_APPEND|O_CREAT, 0666) || die $!; | |
527 | ||
528 | To open file for appending, file must exist: | |
529 | ||
530 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_WRONLY|O_APPEND) || die $!; | |
531 | ||
532 | To open file for update, file must exist: | |
533 | ||
534 | open(FH, "+< $path") || die $!; | |
535 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_RDWR) || die $!; | |
536 | ||
537 | To open file for update, create file if necessary: | |
538 | ||
539 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_RDWR|O_CREAT) || die $!; | |
540 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_RDWR|O_CREAT, 0666) || die $!; | |
541 | ||
542 | To open file for update, file must not exist: | |
543 | ||
544 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_RDWR|O_EXCL|O_CREAT) || die $!; | |
545 | sysopen(FH, $path, O_RDWR|O_EXCL|O_CREAT, 0666) || die $!; | |
546 | ||
547 | To open a file without blocking, creating if necessary: | |
548 | ||
549 | sysopen(FH, "/tmp/somefile", O_WRONLY|O_NDELAY|O_CREAT) | |
550 | or die "can't open /tmp/somefile: $!": | |
551 | ||
552 | Be warned that neither creation nor deletion of files is guaranteed to | |
553 | be an atomic operation over NFS. That is, two processes might both | |
554 | successful create or unlink the same file! Therefore O_EXCL | |
555 | isn't so exclusive as you might wish. | |
68dc0745 | 556 | |
87275199 | 557 | See also the new L<perlopentut> if you have it (new for 5.6). |
65acb1b1 | 558 | |
c47ff5f1 | 559 | =head2 Why do I sometimes get an "Argument list too long" when I use <*>? |
68dc0745 | 560 | |
c47ff5f1 | 561 | The C<< <> >> operator performs a globbing operation (see above). |
3a4b19e4 GS |
562 | In Perl versions earlier than v5.6.0, the internal glob() operator forks |
563 | csh(1) to do the actual glob expansion, but | |
68dc0745 | 564 | csh can't handle more than 127 items and so gives the error message |
565 | C<Argument list too long>. People who installed tcsh as csh won't | |
566 | have this problem, but their users may be surprised by it. | |
567 | ||
3a4b19e4 GS |
568 | To get around this, either upgrade to Perl v5.6.0 or later, do the glob |
569 | yourself with readdir() and patterns, or use a module like Glob::KGlob, | |
570 | one that doesn't use the shell to do globbing. | |
68dc0745 | 571 | |
572 | =head2 Is there a leak/bug in glob()? | |
573 | ||
574 | Due to the current implementation on some operating systems, when you | |
575 | use the glob() function or its angle-bracket alias in a scalar | |
576 | context, you may cause a leak and/or unpredictable behavior. It's | |
577 | best therefore to use glob() only in list context. | |
578 | ||
c47ff5f1 | 579 | =head2 How can I open a file with a leading ">" or trailing blanks? |
68dc0745 | 580 | |
581 | Normally perl ignores trailing blanks in filenames, and interprets | |
582 | certain leading characters (or a trailing "|") to mean something | |
583 | special. To avoid this, you might want to use a routine like this. | |
584 | It makes incomplete pathnames into explicit relative ones, and tacks a | |
585 | trailing null byte on the name to make perl leave it alone: | |
586 | ||
587 | sub safe_filename { | |
588 | local $_ = shift; | |
65acb1b1 TC |
589 | s#^([^./])#./$1#; |
590 | $_ .= "\0"; | |
591 | return $_; | |
68dc0745 | 592 | } |
593 | ||
65acb1b1 TC |
594 | $badpath = "<<<something really wicked "; |
595 | $fn = safe_filename($badpath"); | |
596 | open(FH, "> $fn") or "couldn't open $badpath: $!"; | |
597 | ||
598 | This assumes that you are using POSIX (portable operating systems | |
599 | interface) paths. If you are on a closed, non-portable, proprietary | |
600 | system, you may have to adjust the C<"./"> above. | |
601 | ||
602 | It would be a lot clearer to use sysopen(), though: | |
603 | ||
604 | use Fcntl; | |
605 | $badpath = "<<<something really wicked "; | |
606 | open (FH, $badpath, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC) | |
607 | or die "can't open $badpath: $!"; | |
68dc0745 | 608 | |
65acb1b1 | 609 | For more information, see also the new L<perlopentut> if you have it |
87275199 | 610 | (new for 5.6). |
68dc0745 | 611 | |
612 | =head2 How can I reliably rename a file? | |
613 | ||
d92eb7b0 GS |
614 | Well, usually you just use Perl's rename() function. But that may not |
615 | work everywhere, in particular, renaming files across file systems. | |
616 | Some sub-Unix systems have broken ports that corrupt the semantics of | |
617 | rename() -- for example, WinNT does this right, but Win95 and Win98 | |
618 | are broken. (The last two parts are not surprising, but the first is. :-) | |
619 | ||
620 | If your operating system supports a proper mv(1) program or its moral | |
621 | equivalent, this works: | |
68dc0745 | 622 | |
623 | rename($old, $new) or system("mv", $old, $new); | |
624 | ||
625 | It may be more compelling to use the File::Copy module instead. You | |
626 | just copy to the new file to the new name (checking return values), | |
627 | then delete the old one. This isn't really the same semantics as a | |
628 | real rename(), though, which preserves metainformation like | |
629 | permissions, timestamps, inode info, etc. | |
630 | ||
65acb1b1 | 631 | The newer version of File::Copy exports a move() function. |
5a964f20 | 632 | |
68dc0745 | 633 | =head2 How can I lock a file? |
634 | ||
54310121 | 635 | Perl's builtin flock() function (see L<perlfunc> for details) will call |
68dc0745 | 636 | flock(2) if that exists, fcntl(2) if it doesn't (on perl version 5.004 and |
637 | later), and lockf(3) if neither of the two previous system calls exists. | |
638 | On some systems, it may even use a different form of native locking. | |
639 | Here are some gotchas with Perl's flock(): | |
640 | ||
641 | =over 4 | |
642 | ||
643 | =item 1 | |
644 | ||
645 | Produces a fatal error if none of the three system calls (or their | |
646 | close equivalent) exists. | |
647 | ||
648 | =item 2 | |
649 | ||
650 | lockf(3) does not provide shared locking, and requires that the | |
651 | filehandle be open for writing (or appending, or read/writing). | |
652 | ||
653 | =item 3 | |
654 | ||
d92eb7b0 GS |
655 | Some versions of flock() can't lock files over a network (e.g. on NFS file |
656 | systems), so you'd need to force the use of fcntl(2) when you build Perl. | |
657 | But even this is dubious at best. See the flock entry of L<perlfunc>, | |
658 | and the F<INSTALL> file in the source distribution for information on | |
659 | building Perl to do this. | |
660 | ||
661 | Two potentially non-obvious but traditional flock semantics are that | |
662 | it waits indefinitely until the lock is granted, and that its locks | |
663 | I<merely advisory>. Such discretionary locks are more flexible, but | |
664 | offer fewer guarantees. This means that files locked with flock() may | |
665 | be modified by programs that do not also use flock(). Cars that stop | |
666 | for red lights get on well with each other, but not with cars that don't | |
667 | stop for red lights. See the perlport manpage, your port's specific | |
668 | documentation, or your system-specific local manpages for details. It's | |
669 | best to assume traditional behavior if you're writing portable programs. | |
670 | (But if you're not, you should as always feel perfectly free to write | |
671 | for your own system's idiosyncrasies (sometimes called "features"). | |
672 | Slavish adherence to portability concerns shouldn't get in the way of | |
673 | your getting your job done.) | |
68dc0745 | 674 | |
65acb1b1 | 675 | For more information on file locking, see also L<perlopentut/"File |
87275199 | 676 | Locking"> if you have it (new for 5.6). |
65acb1b1 | 677 | |
68dc0745 | 678 | =back |
679 | ||
65acb1b1 | 680 | =head2 Why can't I just open(FH, ">file.lock")? |
68dc0745 | 681 | |
682 | A common bit of code B<NOT TO USE> is this: | |
683 | ||
684 | sleep(3) while -e "file.lock"; # PLEASE DO NOT USE | |
685 | open(LCK, "> file.lock"); # THIS BROKEN CODE | |
686 | ||
687 | This is a classic race condition: you take two steps to do something | |
688 | which must be done in one. That's why computer hardware provides an | |
689 | atomic test-and-set instruction. In theory, this "ought" to work: | |
690 | ||
5a964f20 | 691 | sysopen(FH, "file.lock", O_WRONLY|O_EXCL|O_CREAT) |
68dc0745 | 692 | or die "can't open file.lock: $!": |
693 | ||
694 | except that lamentably, file creation (and deletion) is not atomic | |
695 | over NFS, so this won't work (at least, not every time) over the net. | |
65acb1b1 | 696 | Various schemes involving link() have been suggested, but |
46fc3d4c | 697 | these tend to involve busy-wait, which is also subdesirable. |
68dc0745 | 698 | |
fc36a67e | 699 | =head2 I still don't get locking. I just want to increment the number in the file. How can I do this? |
68dc0745 | 700 | |
46fc3d4c | 701 | Didn't anyone ever tell you web-page hit counters were useless? |
5a964f20 TC |
702 | They don't count number of hits, they're a waste of time, and they serve |
703 | only to stroke the writer's vanity. Better to pick a random number. | |
704 | It's more realistic. | |
68dc0745 | 705 | |
5a964f20 | 706 | Anyway, this is what you can do if you can't help yourself. |
68dc0745 | 707 | |
65acb1b1 | 708 | use Fcntl ':flock'; |
5a964f20 | 709 | sysopen(FH, "numfile", O_RDWR|O_CREAT) or die "can't open numfile: $!"; |
65acb1b1 | 710 | flock(FH, LOCK_EX) or die "can't flock numfile: $!"; |
68dc0745 | 711 | $num = <FH> || 0; |
712 | seek(FH, 0, 0) or die "can't rewind numfile: $!"; | |
713 | truncate(FH, 0) or die "can't truncate numfile: $!"; | |
714 | (print FH $num+1, "\n") or die "can't write numfile: $!"; | |
65acb1b1 TC |
715 | # Perl as of 5.004 automatically flushes before unlocking |
716 | flock(FH, LOCK_UN) or die "can't flock numfile: $!"; | |
68dc0745 | 717 | close FH or die "can't close numfile: $!"; |
718 | ||
46fc3d4c | 719 | Here's a much better web-page hit counter: |
68dc0745 | 720 | |
721 | $hits = int( (time() - 850_000_000) / rand(1_000) ); | |
722 | ||
723 | If the count doesn't impress your friends, then the code might. :-) | |
724 | ||
725 | =head2 How do I randomly update a binary file? | |
726 | ||
727 | If you're just trying to patch a binary, in many cases something as | |
728 | simple as this works: | |
729 | ||
730 | perl -i -pe 's{window manager}{window mangler}g' /usr/bin/emacs | |
731 | ||
732 | However, if you have fixed sized records, then you might do something more | |
733 | like this: | |
734 | ||
735 | $RECSIZE = 220; # size of record, in bytes | |
736 | $recno = 37; # which record to update | |
737 | open(FH, "+<somewhere") || die "can't update somewhere: $!"; | |
738 | seek(FH, $recno * $RECSIZE, 0); | |
739 | read(FH, $record, $RECSIZE) == $RECSIZE || die "can't read record $recno: $!"; | |
740 | # munge the record | |
65acb1b1 | 741 | seek(FH, -$RECSIZE, 1); |
68dc0745 | 742 | print FH $record; |
743 | close FH; | |
744 | ||
745 | Locking and error checking are left as an exercise for the reader. | |
746 | Don't forget them, or you'll be quite sorry. | |
747 | ||
68dc0745 | 748 | =head2 How do I get a file's timestamp in perl? |
749 | ||
750 | If you want to retrieve the time at which the file was last read, | |
46fc3d4c | 751 | written, or had its meta-data (owner, etc) changed, you use the B<-M>, |
68dc0745 | 752 | B<-A>, or B<-C> filetest operations as documented in L<perlfunc>. These |
753 | retrieve the age of the file (measured against the start-time of your | |
754 | program) in days as a floating point number. To retrieve the "raw" | |
755 | time in seconds since the epoch, you would call the stat function, | |
756 | then use localtime(), gmtime(), or POSIX::strftime() to convert this | |
757 | into human-readable form. | |
758 | ||
759 | Here's an example: | |
760 | ||
761 | $write_secs = (stat($file))[9]; | |
c8db1d39 TC |
762 | printf "file %s updated at %s\n", $file, |
763 | scalar localtime($write_secs); | |
68dc0745 | 764 | |
765 | If you prefer something more legible, use the File::stat module | |
766 | (part of the standard distribution in version 5.004 and later): | |
767 | ||
65acb1b1 | 768 | # error checking left as an exercise for reader. |
68dc0745 | 769 | use File::stat; |
770 | use Time::localtime; | |
771 | $date_string = ctime(stat($file)->mtime); | |
772 | print "file $file updated at $date_string\n"; | |
773 | ||
65acb1b1 TC |
774 | The POSIX::strftime() approach has the benefit of being, |
775 | in theory, independent of the current locale. See L<perllocale> | |
776 | for details. | |
68dc0745 | 777 | |
778 | =head2 How do I set a file's timestamp in perl? | |
779 | ||
780 | You use the utime() function documented in L<perlfunc/utime>. | |
781 | By way of example, here's a little program that copies the | |
782 | read and write times from its first argument to all the rest | |
783 | of them. | |
784 | ||
785 | if (@ARGV < 2) { | |
786 | die "usage: cptimes timestamp_file other_files ...\n"; | |
787 | } | |
788 | $timestamp = shift; | |
789 | ($atime, $mtime) = (stat($timestamp))[8,9]; | |
790 | utime $atime, $mtime, @ARGV; | |
791 | ||
65acb1b1 | 792 | Error checking is, as usual, left as an exercise for the reader. |
68dc0745 | 793 | |
794 | Note that utime() currently doesn't work correctly with Win95/NT | |
795 | ports. A bug has been reported. Check it carefully before using | |
796 | it on those platforms. | |
797 | ||
798 | =head2 How do I print to more than one file at once? | |
799 | ||
800 | If you only have to do this once, you can do this: | |
801 | ||
802 | for $fh (FH1, FH2, FH3) { print $fh "whatever\n" } | |
803 | ||
804 | To connect up to one filehandle to several output filehandles, it's | |
805 | easiest to use the tee(1) program if you have it, and let it take care | |
806 | of the multiplexing: | |
807 | ||
808 | open (FH, "| tee file1 file2 file3"); | |
809 | ||
5a964f20 TC |
810 | Or even: |
811 | ||
812 | # make STDOUT go to three files, plus original STDOUT | |
813 | open (STDOUT, "| tee file1 file2 file3") or die "Teeing off: $!\n"; | |
814 | print "whatever\n" or die "Writing: $!\n"; | |
815 | close(STDOUT) or die "Closing: $!\n"; | |
68dc0745 | 816 | |
5a964f20 TC |
817 | Otherwise you'll have to write your own multiplexing print |
818 | function -- or your own tee program -- or use Tom Christiansen's, | |
819 | at http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/TOMC/scripts/tct.gz, which is | |
820 | written in Perl and offers much greater functionality | |
821 | than the stock version. | |
68dc0745 | 822 | |
d92eb7b0 GS |
823 | =head2 How can I read in an entire file all at once? |
824 | ||
825 | The customary Perl approach for processing all the lines in a file is to | |
826 | do so one line at a time: | |
827 | ||
828 | open (INPUT, $file) || die "can't open $file: $!"; | |
829 | while (<INPUT>) { | |
830 | chomp; | |
831 | # do something with $_ | |
832 | } | |
833 | close(INPUT) || die "can't close $file: $!"; | |
834 | ||
835 | This is tremendously more efficient than reading the entire file into | |
836 | memory as an array of lines and then processing it one element at a time, | |
837 | which is often -- if not almost always -- the wrong approach. Whenever | |
838 | you see someone do this: | |
839 | ||
840 | @lines = <INPUT>; | |
841 | ||
842 | You should think long and hard about why you need everything loaded | |
843 | at once. It's just not a scalable solution. You might also find it | |
ee8c7f54 | 844 | more fun to use the standard DB_File module's $DB_RECNO bindings, |
d92eb7b0 GS |
845 | which allow you to tie an array to a file so that accessing an element |
846 | the array actually accesses the corresponding line in the file. | |
847 | ||
848 | On very rare occasion, you may have an algorithm that demands that | |
849 | the entire file be in memory at once as one scalar. The simplest solution | |
850 | to that is: | |
851 | ||
852 | $var = `cat $file`; | |
853 | ||
854 | Being in scalar context, you get the whole thing. In list context, | |
855 | you'd get a list of all the lines: | |
856 | ||
857 | @lines = `cat $file`; | |
858 | ||
87275199 GS |
859 | This tiny but expedient solution is neat, clean, and portable to |
860 | all systems on which decent tools have been installed. For those | |
861 | who prefer not to use the toolbox, you can of course read the file | |
862 | manually, although this makes for more complicated code. | |
d92eb7b0 GS |
863 | |
864 | { | |
865 | local(*INPUT, $/); | |
866 | open (INPUT, $file) || die "can't open $file: $!"; | |
867 | $var = <INPUT>; | |
868 | } | |
869 | ||
870 | That temporarily undefs your record separator, and will automatically | |
871 | close the file at block exit. If the file is already open, just use this: | |
872 | ||
873 | $var = do { local $/; <INPUT> }; | |
874 | ||
68dc0745 | 875 | =head2 How can I read in a file by paragraphs? |
876 | ||
65acb1b1 | 877 | Use the C<$/> variable (see L<perlvar> for details). You can either |
68dc0745 | 878 | set it to C<""> to eliminate empty paragraphs (C<"abc\n\n\n\ndef">, |
879 | for instance, gets treated as two paragraphs and not three), or | |
880 | C<"\n\n"> to accept empty paragraphs. | |
881 | ||
65acb1b1 TC |
882 | Note that a blank line must have no blanks in it. Thus C<"fred\n |
883 | \nstuff\n\n"> is one paragraph, but C<"fred\n\nstuff\n\n"> is two. | |
884 | ||
68dc0745 | 885 | =head2 How can I read a single character from a file? From the keyboard? |
886 | ||
887 | You can use the builtin C<getc()> function for most filehandles, but | |
888 | it won't (easily) work on a terminal device. For STDIN, either use | |
889 | the Term::ReadKey module from CPAN, or use the sample code in | |
890 | L<perlfunc/getc>. | |
891 | ||
65acb1b1 TC |
892 | If your system supports the portable operating system programming |
893 | interface (POSIX), you can use the following code, which you'll note | |
894 | turns off echo processing as well. | |
68dc0745 | 895 | |
896 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w | |
897 | use strict; | |
898 | $| = 1; | |
899 | for (1..4) { | |
900 | my $got; | |
901 | print "gimme: "; | |
902 | $got = getone(); | |
903 | print "--> $got\n"; | |
904 | } | |
905 | exit; | |
906 | ||
907 | BEGIN { | |
908 | use POSIX qw(:termios_h); | |
909 | ||
910 | my ($term, $oterm, $echo, $noecho, $fd_stdin); | |
911 | ||
912 | $fd_stdin = fileno(STDIN); | |
913 | ||
914 | $term = POSIX::Termios->new(); | |
915 | $term->getattr($fd_stdin); | |
916 | $oterm = $term->getlflag(); | |
917 | ||
918 | $echo = ECHO | ECHOK | ICANON; | |
919 | $noecho = $oterm & ~$echo; | |
920 | ||
921 | sub cbreak { | |
922 | $term->setlflag($noecho); | |
923 | $term->setcc(VTIME, 1); | |
924 | $term->setattr($fd_stdin, TCSANOW); | |
925 | } | |
926 | ||
927 | sub cooked { | |
928 | $term->setlflag($oterm); | |
929 | $term->setcc(VTIME, 0); | |
930 | $term->setattr($fd_stdin, TCSANOW); | |
931 | } | |
932 | ||
933 | sub getone { | |
934 | my $key = ''; | |
935 | cbreak(); | |
936 | sysread(STDIN, $key, 1); | |
937 | cooked(); | |
938 | return $key; | |
939 | } | |
940 | ||
941 | } | |
942 | ||
943 | END { cooked() } | |
944 | ||
65acb1b1 TC |
945 | The Term::ReadKey module from CPAN may be easier to use. Recent version |
946 | include also support for non-portable systems as well. | |
68dc0745 | 947 | |
948 | use Term::ReadKey; | |
949 | open(TTY, "</dev/tty"); | |
950 | print "Gimme a char: "; | |
951 | ReadMode "raw"; | |
952 | $key = ReadKey 0, *TTY; | |
953 | ReadMode "normal"; | |
954 | printf "\nYou said %s, char number %03d\n", | |
955 | $key, ord $key; | |
956 | ||
65acb1b1 | 957 | For legacy DOS systems, Dan Carson <dbc@tc.fluke.COM> reports the following: |
68dc0745 | 958 | |
959 | To put the PC in "raw" mode, use ioctl with some magic numbers gleaned | |
960 | from msdos.c (Perl source file) and Ralf Brown's interrupt list (comes | |
961 | across the net every so often): | |
962 | ||
963 | $old_ioctl = ioctl(STDIN,0,0); # Gets device info | |
964 | $old_ioctl &= 0xff; | |
965 | ioctl(STDIN,1,$old_ioctl | 32); # Writes it back, setting bit 5 | |
966 | ||
967 | Then to read a single character: | |
968 | ||
969 | sysread(STDIN,$c,1); # Read a single character | |
970 | ||
971 | And to put the PC back to "cooked" mode: | |
972 | ||
973 | ioctl(STDIN,1,$old_ioctl); # Sets it back to cooked mode. | |
974 | ||
975 | So now you have $c. If C<ord($c) == 0>, you have a two byte code, which | |
976 | means you hit a special key. Read another byte with C<sysread(STDIN,$c,1)>, | |
977 | and that value tells you what combination it was according to this | |
978 | table: | |
979 | ||
980 | # PC 2-byte keycodes = ^@ + the following: | |
981 | ||
982 | # HEX KEYS | |
983 | # --- ---- | |
984 | # 0F SHF TAB | |
985 | # 10-19 ALT QWERTYUIOP | |
986 | # 1E-26 ALT ASDFGHJKL | |
987 | # 2C-32 ALT ZXCVBNM | |
988 | # 3B-44 F1-F10 | |
989 | # 47-49 HOME,UP,PgUp | |
990 | # 4B LEFT | |
991 | # 4D RIGHT | |
992 | # 4F-53 END,DOWN,PgDn,Ins,Del | |
993 | # 54-5D SHF F1-F10 | |
994 | # 5E-67 CTR F1-F10 | |
995 | # 68-71 ALT F1-F10 | |
996 | # 73-77 CTR LEFT,RIGHT,END,PgDn,HOME | |
997 | # 78-83 ALT 1234567890-= | |
998 | # 84 CTR PgUp | |
999 | ||
1000 | This is all trial and error I did a long time ago, I hope I'm reading the | |
1001 | file that worked. | |
1002 | ||
65acb1b1 | 1003 | =head2 How can I tell whether there's a character waiting on a filehandle? |
68dc0745 | 1004 | |
5a964f20 | 1005 | The very first thing you should do is look into getting the Term::ReadKey |
65acb1b1 TC |
1006 | extension from CPAN. As we mentioned earlier, it now even has limited |
1007 | support for non-portable (read: not open systems, closed, proprietary, | |
1008 | not POSIX, not Unix, etc) systems. | |
5a964f20 TC |
1009 | |
1010 | You should also check out the Frequently Asked Questions list in | |
68dc0745 | 1011 | comp.unix.* for things like this: the answer is essentially the same. |
1012 | It's very system dependent. Here's one solution that works on BSD | |
1013 | systems: | |
1014 | ||
1015 | sub key_ready { | |
1016 | my($rin, $nfd); | |
1017 | vec($rin, fileno(STDIN), 1) = 1; | |
1018 | return $nfd = select($rin,undef,undef,0); | |
1019 | } | |
1020 | ||
65acb1b1 TC |
1021 | If you want to find out how many characters are waiting, there's |
1022 | also the FIONREAD ioctl call to be looked at. The I<h2ph> tool that | |
1023 | comes with Perl tries to convert C include files to Perl code, which | |
1024 | can be C<require>d. FIONREAD ends up defined as a function in the | |
1025 | I<sys/ioctl.ph> file: | |
68dc0745 | 1026 | |
5a964f20 | 1027 | require 'sys/ioctl.ph'; |
68dc0745 | 1028 | |
5a964f20 TC |
1029 | $size = pack("L", 0); |
1030 | ioctl(FH, FIONREAD(), $size) or die "Couldn't call ioctl: $!\n"; | |
1031 | $size = unpack("L", $size); | |
68dc0745 | 1032 | |
5a964f20 TC |
1033 | If I<h2ph> wasn't installed or doesn't work for you, you can |
1034 | I<grep> the include files by hand: | |
68dc0745 | 1035 | |
5a964f20 TC |
1036 | % grep FIONREAD /usr/include/*/* |
1037 | /usr/include/asm/ioctls.h:#define FIONREAD 0x541B | |
68dc0745 | 1038 | |
5a964f20 | 1039 | Or write a small C program using the editor of champions: |
68dc0745 | 1040 | |
5a964f20 TC |
1041 | % cat > fionread.c |
1042 | #include <sys/ioctl.h> | |
1043 | main() { | |
1044 | printf("%#08x\n", FIONREAD); | |
1045 | } | |
1046 | ^D | |
65acb1b1 | 1047 | % cc -o fionread fionread.c |
5a964f20 TC |
1048 | % ./fionread |
1049 | 0x4004667f | |
1050 | ||
1051 | And then hard-code it, leaving porting as an exercise to your successor. | |
1052 | ||
1053 | $FIONREAD = 0x4004667f; # XXX: opsys dependent | |
1054 | ||
1055 | $size = pack("L", 0); | |
1056 | ioctl(FH, $FIONREAD, $size) or die "Couldn't call ioctl: $!\n"; | |
1057 | $size = unpack("L", $size); | |
1058 | ||
1059 | FIONREAD requires a filehandle connected to a stream, meaning sockets, | |
1060 | pipes, and tty devices work, but I<not> files. | |
68dc0745 | 1061 | |
1062 | =head2 How do I do a C<tail -f> in perl? | |
1063 | ||
1064 | First try | |
1065 | ||
1066 | seek(GWFILE, 0, 1); | |
1067 | ||
1068 | The statement C<seek(GWFILE, 0, 1)> doesn't change the current position, | |
1069 | but it does clear the end-of-file condition on the handle, so that the | |
1070 | next <GWFILE> makes Perl try again to read something. | |
1071 | ||
1072 | If that doesn't work (it relies on features of your stdio implementation), | |
1073 | then you need something more like this: | |
1074 | ||
1075 | for (;;) { | |
1076 | for ($curpos = tell(GWFILE); <GWFILE>; $curpos = tell(GWFILE)) { | |
1077 | # search for some stuff and put it into files | |
1078 | } | |
1079 | # sleep for a while | |
1080 | seek(GWFILE, $curpos, 0); # seek to where we had been | |
1081 | } | |
1082 | ||
1083 | If this still doesn't work, look into the POSIX module. POSIX defines | |
1084 | the clearerr() method, which can remove the end of file condition on a | |
1085 | filehandle. The method: read until end of file, clearerr(), read some | |
1086 | more. Lather, rinse, repeat. | |
1087 | ||
65acb1b1 TC |
1088 | There's also a File::Tail module from CPAN. |
1089 | ||
68dc0745 | 1090 | =head2 How do I dup() a filehandle in Perl? |
1091 | ||
1092 | If you check L<perlfunc/open>, you'll see that several of the ways | |
1093 | to call open() should do the trick. For example: | |
1094 | ||
1095 | open(LOG, ">>/tmp/logfile"); | |
1096 | open(STDERR, ">&LOG"); | |
1097 | ||
1098 | Or even with a literal numeric descriptor: | |
1099 | ||
1100 | $fd = $ENV{MHCONTEXTFD}; | |
1101 | open(MHCONTEXT, "<&=$fd"); # like fdopen(3S) | |
1102 | ||
c47ff5f1 | 1103 | Note that "<&STDIN" makes a copy, but "<&=STDIN" make |
5a964f20 TC |
1104 | an alias. That means if you close an aliased handle, all |
1105 | aliases become inaccessible. This is not true with | |
1106 | a copied one. | |
1107 | ||
1108 | Error checking, as always, has been left as an exercise for the reader. | |
68dc0745 | 1109 | |
1110 | =head2 How do I close a file descriptor by number? | |
1111 | ||
1112 | This should rarely be necessary, as the Perl close() function is to be | |
1113 | used for things that Perl opened itself, even if it was a dup of a | |
1114 | numeric descriptor, as with MHCONTEXT above. But if you really have | |
1115 | to, you may be able to do this: | |
1116 | ||
1117 | require 'sys/syscall.ph'; | |
1118 | $rc = syscall(&SYS_close, $fd + 0); # must force numeric | |
1119 | die "can't sysclose $fd: $!" unless $rc == -1; | |
1120 | ||
d92eb7b0 GS |
1121 | Or just use the fdopen(3S) feature of open(): |
1122 | ||
1123 | { | |
1124 | local *F; | |
1125 | open F, "<&=$fd" or die "Cannot reopen fd=$fd: $!"; | |
1126 | close F; | |
1127 | } | |
1128 | ||
46fc3d4c | 1129 | =head2 Why can't I use "C:\temp\foo" in DOS paths? What doesn't `C:\temp\foo.exe` work? |
68dc0745 | 1130 | |
1131 | Whoops! You just put a tab and a formfeed into that filename! | |
1132 | Remember that within double quoted strings ("like\this"), the | |
1133 | backslash is an escape character. The full list of these is in | |
1134 | L<perlop/Quote and Quote-like Operators>. Unsurprisingly, you don't | |
1135 | have a file called "c:(tab)emp(formfeed)oo" or | |
65acb1b1 | 1136 | "c:(tab)emp(formfeed)oo.exe" on your legacy DOS filesystem. |
68dc0745 | 1137 | |
1138 | Either single-quote your strings, or (preferably) use forward slashes. | |
46fc3d4c | 1139 | Since all DOS and Windows versions since something like MS-DOS 2.0 or so |
68dc0745 | 1140 | have treated C</> and C<\> the same in a path, you might as well use the |
1141 | one that doesn't clash with Perl -- or the POSIX shell, ANSI C and C++, | |
65acb1b1 TC |
1142 | awk, Tcl, Java, or Python, just to mention a few. POSIX paths |
1143 | are more portable, too. | |
68dc0745 | 1144 | |
1145 | =head2 Why doesn't glob("*.*") get all the files? | |
1146 | ||
1147 | Because even on non-Unix ports, Perl's glob function follows standard | |
46fc3d4c | 1148 | Unix globbing semantics. You'll need C<glob("*")> to get all (non-hidden) |
65acb1b1 TC |
1149 | files. This makes glob() portable even to legacy systems. Your |
1150 | port may include proprietary globbing functions as well. Check its | |
1151 | documentation for details. | |
68dc0745 | 1152 | |
1153 | =head2 Why does Perl let me delete read-only files? Why does C<-i> clobber protected files? Isn't this a bug in Perl? | |
1154 | ||
1155 | This is elaborately and painstakingly described in the "Far More Than | |
7b8d334a | 1156 | You Ever Wanted To Know" in |
68dc0745 | 1157 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FMTEYEWTK/file-dir-perms . |
1158 | ||
1159 | The executive summary: learn how your filesystem works. The | |
1160 | permissions on a file say what can happen to the data in that file. | |
1161 | The permissions on a directory say what can happen to the list of | |
1162 | files in that directory. If you delete a file, you're removing its | |
1163 | name from the directory (so the operation depends on the permissions | |
1164 | of the directory, not of the file). If you try to write to the file, | |
1165 | the permissions of the file govern whether you're allowed to. | |
1166 | ||
1167 | =head2 How do I select a random line from a file? | |
1168 | ||
1169 | Here's an algorithm from the Camel Book: | |
1170 | ||
1171 | srand; | |
1172 | rand($.) < 1 && ($line = $_) while <>; | |
1173 | ||
1174 | This has a significant advantage in space over reading the whole | |
5a964f20 TC |
1175 | file in. A simple proof by induction is available upon |
1176 | request if you doubt its correctness. | |
68dc0745 | 1177 | |
65acb1b1 TC |
1178 | =head2 Why do I get weird spaces when I print an array of lines? |
1179 | ||
1180 | Saying | |
1181 | ||
1182 | print "@lines\n"; | |
1183 | ||
1184 | joins together the elements of C<@lines> with a space between them. | |
1185 | If C<@lines> were C<("little", "fluffy", "clouds")> then the above | |
1186 | statement would print: | |
1187 | ||
1188 | little fluffy clouds | |
1189 | ||
1190 | but if each element of C<@lines> was a line of text, ending a newline | |
1191 | character C<("little\n", "fluffy\n", "clouds\n")> then it would print: | |
1192 | ||
1193 | little | |
1194 | fluffy | |
1195 | clouds | |
1196 | ||
1197 | If your array contains lines, just print them: | |
1198 | ||
1199 | print @lines; | |
1200 | ||
68dc0745 | 1201 | =head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT |
1202 | ||
65acb1b1 | 1203 | Copyright (c) 1997-1999 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington. |
5a964f20 TC |
1204 | All rights reserved. |
1205 | ||
c8db1d39 | 1206 | When included as an integrated part of the Standard Distribution |
d92eb7b0 GS |
1207 | of Perl or of its documentation (printed or otherwise), this works is |
1208 | covered under Perl's Artistic License. For separate distributions of | |
c8db1d39 TC |
1209 | all or part of this FAQ outside of that, see L<perlfaq>. |
1210 | ||
87275199 | 1211 | Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are in the public |
c8db1d39 TC |
1212 | domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and any |
1213 | derivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as you | |
1214 | see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would | |
1215 | be courteous but is not required. |