The aim of the implementation is to provide the PerlIO API in a flexible
and platform neutral manner. It is also a trial of an "Object Oriented
-C, with vtables" approach which may be applied to perl6.
+C, with vtables" approach which may be applied to Perl 6.
=head2 Basic Structure
-PerlIO is as a stack of layers.
+PerlIO is a stack of layers.
The low levels of the stack work with the low-level operating system
calls (file descriptors in C) getting bytes in and out, the higher
-layers of the stack buffer, filter, and otherwise manipulate the I/O.
-Terms I<above> and I<below> are used to refer to the relative
-positioning of the stack layers.
+layers of the stack buffer, filter, and otherwise manipulate the I/O,
+and return characters (or bytes) to Perl. Terms I<above> and I<below>
+are used to refer to the relative positioning of the stack layers.
A layer contains a "vtable", the table of I/O operations (at C level
a table of function pointers), and status flags. The functions in the
the result is returned up the stack, finally being interpreted as Perl
data.
+The requests do not necessarily go always all the way down to the
+operating system: that's where PerlIO buffering comes into play.
+
When you do an open() and specify extra PerlIO layers to be deployed,
the layers you specify are "pushed" on top of the already existing
-default stack. What exact layers are in this default stack depends on
-a lot of things: your operating system, Perl version, Perl compile
-time configuration, and Perl runtime configuration. See L<PerlIO>,
+default stack. One way to see it is that "operating system is
+on the left" and "Perl is on the right".
+
+What exact layers are in this default stack depends on a lot of
+things: your operating system, Perl version, Perl compile time
+configuration, and Perl runtime configuration. See L<PerlIO>,
L<perlrun/PERLIO>, and L<open> for more information.
binmode() operates similarly to open(): by default the specified
in the table correspond to C<stdin>,C<stdout> and C<stderr>. The table
in turn points to the current "top" layer for the handle - in this case
an instance of the generic buffering layer "perlio". That layer in turn
-points to the next layer down - in this case the lowlevel "unix" layer.
+points to the next layer down - in this case the low-level "unix" layer.
The above is roughly equivalent to a "stdio" buffered stream, but with
much more flexibility:
"ascii". (I<param> and I<flags> arguments can be ignored in most
cases)
+C<Dup> uses C<Getarg> to retrieve the argument originally passed to
+C<Pushed>, so you must implement this function if your layer has an
+extra argument to C<Pushed> and will ever be C<Dup>ed.
+
=item Fileno
IV (*Fileno)(pTHX_ PerlIO *f);
=back
+=head2 Utilities
+
+To ask for the next layer down use PerlIONext(PerlIO *f).
+
+To check that a PerlIO* is valid use PerlIOValid(PerlIO *f). (All
+this does is really just to check that the pointer is non-NULL and
+that the pointer behind that is non-NULL.)
+
+PerlIOBase(PerlIO *f) returns the "Base" pointer, or in other words,
+the C<PerlIOl*> pointer.
+
+PerlIOSelf(PerlIO* f, type) return the PerlIOBase cast to a type.
+
+Perl_PerlIO_or_Base(PerlIO* f, callback, base, failure, args) either
+calls the I<callback> from the functions of the layer I<f> (just by
+the name of the IO function, like "Read") with the I<args>, or if
+there is no such callback, calls the I<base> version of the callback
+with the same args, or if the f is invalid, set errno to EBADF and
+return I<failure>.
+
+Perl_PerlIO_or_fail(PerlIO* f, callback, failure, args) either calls
+the I<callback> of the functions of the layer I<f> with the I<args>,
+or if there is no such callback, set errno to EINVAL. Or if the f is
+invalid, set errno to EBADF and return I<failure>.
+
+Perl_PerlIO_or_Base_void(PerlIO* f, callback, base, args) either calls
+the I<callback> of the functions of the layer I<f> with the I<args>,
+or if there is no such callback, calls the I<base> version of the
+callback with the same args, or if the f is invalid, set errno to
+EBADF.
+
+Perl_PerlIO_or_fail_void(PerlIO* f, callback, args) either calls the
+I<callback> of the functions of the layer I<f> with the I<args>, or if
+there is no such callback, set errno to EINVAL. Or if the f is
+invalid, set errno to EBADF.
+
=head2 Implementing PerlIO Layers
If you find the implementation document unclear or not sufficient,
-look at the existing perlio layer implementations, which include:
+look at the existing PerlIO layer implementations, which include:
=over
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff