IO::File

IO::File(3)            Perl Programmers Reference Guide            IO::File(3)



NAME
       IO::File - supply object methods for filehandles

SYNOPSIS
           use IO::File;

           $fh = new IO::File;
           if ($fh->open("< file")) {
               print <$fh>;
               $fh->close;
           }

           $fh = new IO::File "> file";
           if (defined $fh) {
               print $fh "bar\n";
               $fh->close;
           }

           $fh = new IO::File "file", "r";
           if (defined $fh) {
               print <$fh>;
               undef $fh;       # automatically closes the file
           }

           $fh = new IO::File "file", O_WRONLY|O_APPEND;
           if (defined $fh) {
               print $fh "corge\n";

               $pos = $fh->getpos;
               $fh->setpos($pos);

               undef $fh;       # automatically closes the file
           }

           autoflush STDOUT 1;

DESCRIPTION
       "IO::File" inherits from "IO::Handle" and "IO::Seekable". It extends
       these classes with methods that are specific to file handles.

CONSTRUCTOR
       new ( FILENAME [,MODE [,PERMS]] )
           Creates an "IO::File".  If it receives any parameters, they are
           passed to the method "open"; if the open fails, the object is
           destroyed.  Otherwise, it is returned to the caller.

       new_tmpfile
           Creates an "IO::File" opened for read/write on a newly created tem-
           porary file.  On systems where this is possible, the temporary file
           is anonymous (i.e. it is unlinked after creation, but held open).
           If the temporary file cannot be created or opened, the "IO::File"
           object is destroyed.  Otherwise, it is returned to the caller.

METHODS
       open( FILENAME [,MODE [,PERMS]] )
       open( FILENAME, IOLAYERS )
           "open" accepts one, two or three parameters.  With one parameter,
           it is just a front end for the built-in "open" function.  With two
           or three parameters, the first parameter is a filename that may
           include whitespace or other special characters, and the second
           parameter is the open mode, optionally followed by a file permis-
           sion value.

           If "IO::File::open" receives a Perl mode string (">", "+<", etc.)
           or an ANSI C fopen() mode string ("w", "r+", etc.), it uses the
           basic Perl "open" operator (but protects any special characters).

           If "IO::File::open" is given a numeric mode, it passes that mode
           and the optional permissions value to the Perl "sysopen" operator.
           The permissions default to 0666.

           If "IO::File::open" is given a mode that includes the ":" charac-
           ter, it passes all the three arguments to the three-argument "open"
           operator.

           For convenience, "IO::File" exports the O_XXX constants from the
           Fcntl module, if this module is available.

SEE ALSO
       perlfunc, "I/O Operators" in perlop, IO::Handle IO::Seekable

HISTORY
       Derived from FileHandle.pm by Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>.



perl v5.8.6                       2001-09-21                       IO::File(3)