(contributed by brian d foy)
-If you want to C<write> into a string, you just have to <open> a
+If you want to C<write> into a string, you just have to <open> a
filehandle to a string, which Perl has been able to do since Perl 5.6:
open FH, '>', \my $string;
write( FH );
-
+
Since you want to be a good programmer, you probably want to use a lexical
filehandle, even though formats are designed to work with bareword filehandles
-since the default format names take the filehandle name. However, you can
+since the default format names take the filehandle name. However, you can
control this with some Perl special per-filehandle variables: C<$^>, which
names the top-of-page format, and C<$~> which shows the line format. You have
to change the default filehandle to set these variables:
open my($fh), '>', \my $string;
-
+
{ # set per-filehandle variables
my $old_fh = select( $fh );
$~ = 'ANIMAL';
format ANIMAL_TOP =
ID Type Name
.
-
+
format ANIMAL =
@## @<<< @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
$id, $type, $name
.
Although write can work with lexical or package variables, whatever variables
-you use have to scope in the format. That most likely means you'll want to
+you use have to scope in the format. That most likely means you'll want to
localize some package variables:
{
local( $id, $type, $name ) = qw( 12 cat Buster );
write( $fh );
}
-
+
print $string;
-There are also some tricks that you can play with C<formline> and the
+There are also some tricks that you can play with C<formline> and the
accumulator variable C<$^A>, but you lose a lot of the value of formats
since C<formline> won't handle paging and so on. You end up reimplementing
formats when you use them.
my $var = do { local $/; <$fh> };
-You can do that one better by using a localized C<@ARGV> so you can
+You can do that one better by using a localized C<@ARGV> so you can
eliminate the C<open>:
my $var = do { local( @ARGV, $/ ) = $file; <> };