PERLFUNC(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLFUNC(1)
NAME
perlfunc - Perl builtin functions
DESCRIPTION
The functions in this section can serve as terms in an expression. They
fall into two major categories: list operators and named unary
operators. These differ in their precedence relationship with a
following comma. (See the precedence table in perlop.) List operators
take more than one argument, while unary operators can never take more
than one argument. Thus, a comma terminates the argument of a unary
operator, but merely separates the arguments of a list operator. A
unary operator generally provides scalar context to its argument, while
a list operator may provide either scalar or list contexts for its
arguments. If it does both, scalar arguments come first and list
argument follow, and there can only ever be one such list argument. For
instance, "splice" has three scalar arguments followed by a list,
whereas "gethostbyname" has four scalar arguments.
In the syntax descriptions that follow, list operators that expect a
list (and provide list context for elements of the list) are shown with
LIST as an argument. Such a list may consist of any combination of
scalar arguments or list values; the list values will be included in the
list as if each individual element were interpolated at that point in
the list, forming a longer single-dimensional list value. Commas should
separate literal elements of the LIST.
Any function in the list below may be used either with or without
parentheses around its arguments. (The syntax descriptions omit the
parentheses.) If you use parentheses, the simple but occasionally
surprising rule is this: It looks like a function, therefore it is a
function, and precedence doesn't matter. Otherwise it's a list operator
or unary operator, and precedence does matter. Whitespace between the
function and left parenthesis doesn't count, so sometimes you need to be
careful:
print 1+2+4; # Prints 7.
print(1+2) + 4; # Prints 3.
print (1+2)+4; # Also prints 3!
print +(1+2)+4; # Prints 7.
print ((1+2)+4); # Prints 7.
If you run Perl with the "use warnings" pragma, it can warn you about
this. For example, the third line above produces:
print (...) interpreted as function at - line 1.
Useless use of integer addition in void context at - line 1.
A few functions take no arguments at all, and therefore work as neither
unary nor list operators. These include such functions as "time" and
"endpwent". For example, "time+86_400" always means "time() + 86_400".
For functions that can be used in either a scalar or list context,
nonabortive failure is generally indicated in scalar context by
returning the undefined value, and in list context by returning the
empty list.
Remember the following important rule: There is no rule that relates the
behavior of an expression in list context to its behavior in scalar
context, or vice versa. It might do two totally different things. Each
operator and function decides which sort of value would be most
appropriate to return in scalar context. Some operators return the
length of the list that would have been returned in list context. Some
operators return the first value in the list. Some operators return the
last value in the list. Some operators return a count of successful
operations. In general, they do what you want, unless you want
consistency.
A named array in scalar context is quite different from what would at
first glance appear to be a list in scalar context. You can't get a
list like "(1,2,3)" into being in scalar context, because the compiler
knows the context at compile time. It would generate the scalar comma
operator there, not the list concatenation version of the comma. That
means it was never a list to start with.
In general, functions in Perl that serve as wrappers for system calls
("syscalls") of the same name (like chown(2), fork(2), closedir(2),
etc.) return true when they succeed and "undef" otherwise, as is usually
mentioned in the descriptions below. This is different from the C
interfaces, which return -1 on failure. Exceptions to this rule include
"wait", "waitpid", and "syscall". System calls also set the special $!
variable on failure. Other functions do not, except accidentally.
Extension modules can also hook into the Perl parser to define new kinds
of keyword-headed expression. These may look like functions, but may
also look completely different. The syntax following the keyword is
defined entirely by the extension. If you are an implementor, see
"PL_keyword_plugin" in perlapi for the mechanism. If you are using such
a module, see the module's documentation for details of the syntax that
it defines.
Perl Functions by Category
Here are Perl's functions (including things that look like functions,
like some keywords and named operators) arranged by category. Some
functions appear in more than one place. Any warnings, including those
produced by keywords, are described in perldiag and warnings.
Functions for SCALARs or strings
"chomp", "chop", "chr", "crypt", "fc", "hex", "index", "lc",
"lcfirst", "length", "oct", "ord", "pack", "q//", "qq//", "reverse",
"rindex", "sprintf", "substr", "tr///", "uc", "ucfirst", "y///"
"fc" is available only if the "fc" feature is enabled or if it is
prefixed with "CORE::". The "fc" feature is enabled automatically
with a "use v5.16" (or higher) declaration in the current scope.
Regular expressions and pattern matching
"m//", "pos", "qr//", "quotemeta", "s///", "split", "study"
Numeric functions
"abs", "atan2", "cos", "exp", "hex", "int", "log", "oct", "rand",
"sin", "sqrt", "srand"
Functions for real @ARRAYs
"each", "keys", "pop", "push", "shift", "splice", "unshift",
"values"
Functions for list data
"grep", "join", "map", "qw//", "reverse", "sort", "unpack"
Functions for real %HASHes
"delete", "each", "exists", "keys", "values"
Input and output functions
"binmode", "close", "closedir", "dbmclose", "dbmopen", "die", "eof",
"fileno", "flock", "format", "getc", "print", "printf", "read",
"readdir", "readline", "rewinddir", "say", "seek", "seekdir",
"select", "syscall", "sysread", "sysseek", "syswrite", "tell",
"telldir", "truncate", "warn", "write"
"say" is available only if the "say" feature is enabled or if it is
prefixed with "CORE::". The "say" feature is enabled automatically
with a "use v5.10" (or higher) declaration in the current scope.
Functions for fixed-length data or records
"pack", "read", "syscall", "sysread", "sysseek", "syswrite",
"unpack", "vec"
Functions for filehandles, files, or directories
"-X", "chdir", "chmod", "chown", "chroot", "fcntl", "glob", "ioctl",
"link", "lstat", "mkdir", "open", "opendir", "readlink", "rename",
"rmdir", "select", "stat", "symlink", "sysopen", "umask", "unlink",
"utime"
Keywords related to the control flow of your Perl program
"break", "caller", "continue", "die", "do", "dump", "eval",
"evalbytes", "exit", "__FILE__", "goto", "last", "__LINE__",
"method", "next", "__PACKAGE__", "redo", "return", "sub", "__SUB__",
"wantarray"
"break" is available only if you enable the experimental "switch"
feature or use the "CORE::" prefix. The "switch" feature also
enables the "default", "given" and "when" statements, which are
documented in "Switch Statements" in perlsyn. The "switch" feature
is enabled automatically with a "use v5.10" (or higher) declaration
in the current scope. In Perl v5.14 and earlier, "continue"
required the "switch" feature, like the other keywords.
"evalbytes" is only available with the "evalbytes" feature (see
feature) or if prefixed with "CORE::". "__SUB__" is only available
with the "current_sub" feature or if prefixed with "CORE::". Both
the "evalbytes" and "current_sub" features are enabled automatically
with a "use v5.16" (or higher) declaration in the current scope.
Keywords related to scoping
"caller", "class", "field", "import", "local", "my", "our",
"package", "state", "use"
"state" is available only if the "state" feature is enabled or if it
is prefixed with "CORE::". The "state" feature is enabled
automatically with a "use v5.10" (or higher) declaration in the
current scope.
Miscellaneous functions
"defined", "formline", "lock", "prototype", "reset", "scalar",
"undef"
Functions for processes and process groups
"alarm", "exec", "fork", "getpgrp", "getppid", "getpriority",
"kill", "pipe", "qx//", "readpipe", "setpgrp", "setpriority",
"sleep", "system", "times", "wait", "waitpid"
Keywords related to Perl modules
"do", "import", "no", "package", "require", "use"
Keywords related to classes and object-orientation
"bless", "class", "__CLASS__", "dbmclose", "dbmopen", "field",
"method", "package", "ref", "tie", "tied", "untie", "use"
Low-level socket functions
"accept", "bind", "connect", "getpeername", "getsockname",
"getsockopt", "listen", "recv", "send", "setsockopt", "shutdown",
"socket", "socketpair"
System V interprocess communication functions
"msgctl", "msgget", "msgrcv", "msgsnd", "semctl", "semget", "semop",
"shmctl", "shmget", "shmread", "shmwrite"
Fetching user and group info
"endgrent", "endhostent", "endnetent", "endpwent", "getgrent",
"getgrgid", "getgrnam", "getlogin", "getpwent", "getpwnam",
"getpwuid", "setgrent", "setpwent"
Fetching network info
"endprotoent", "endservent", "gethostbyaddr", "gethostbyname",
"gethostent", "getnetbyaddr", "getnetbyname", "getnetent",
"getprotobyname", "getprotobynumber", "getprotoent",
"getservbyname", "getservbyport", "getservent", "sethostent",
"setnetent", "setprotoent", "setservent"
Time-related functions
"gmtime", "localtime", "time", "times"
Non-function keywords
"ADJUST", "and", "AUTOLOAD", "BEGIN", "catch", "CHECK", "cmp",
"CORE", "__DATA__", "default", "defer", "DESTROY", "else", "elseif",
"elsif", "END", "__END__", "eq", "finally", "for", "foreach", "ge",
"given", "gt", "if", "INIT", "isa", "le", "lt", "ne", "not", "or",
"try", "UNITCHECK", "unless", "until", "when", "while", "x", "xor"
Portability
Perl was born in Unix and can therefore access all common Unix system
calls. In non-Unix environments, the functionality of some Unix system
calls may not be available or details of the available functionality may
differ slightly. The Perl functions affected by this are:
"-X", "binmode", "chmod", "chown", "chroot", "crypt", "dbmclose",
"dbmopen", "dump", "endgrent", "endhostent", "endnetent", "endprotoent",
"endpwent", "endservent", "exec", "fcntl", "flock", "fork", "getgrent",
"getgrgid", "gethostbyname", "gethostent", "getlogin", "getnetbyaddr",
"getnetbyname", "getnetent", "getppid", "getpgrp", "getpriority",
"getprotobynumber", "getprotoent", "getpwent", "getpwnam", "getpwuid",
"getservbyport", "getservent", "getsockopt", "glob", "ioctl", "kill",
"link", "lstat", "msgctl", "msgget", "msgrcv", "msgsnd", "open", "pipe",
"readlink", "rename", "select", "semctl", "semget", "semop", "setgrent",
"sethostent", "setnetent", "setpgrp", "setpriority", "setprotoent",
"setpwent", "setservent", "setsockopt", "shmctl", "shmget", "shmread",
"shmwrite", "socket", "socketpair", "stat", "symlink", "syscall",
"sysopen", "system", "times", "truncate", "umask", "unlink", "utime",
"wait", "waitpid"
For more information about the portability of these functions, see
perlport and other available platform-specific documentation.
Alphabetical Listing of Perl Functions
-X FILEHANDLE
-X EXPR
-X DIRHANDLE
-X A file test, where X is one of the letters listed below. This unary
operator takes one argument, either a filename, a filehandle, or a
dirhandle, and tests the associated file to see if something is true
about it. If the argument is omitted, tests $_, except for "-t",
which tests STDIN. Unless otherwise documented, it returns 1 for
true and '' for false. If the file doesn't exist or can't be
examined, it returns "undef" and sets $! (errno). With the
exception of the "-l" test they all follow symbolic links because
they use stat() and not lstat() (so dangling symlinks can't be
examined and will therefore report failure).
Despite the funny names, precedence is the same as any other named
unary operator. The operator may be any of:
-r File is readable by effective uid/gid.
-w File is writable by effective uid/gid.
-x File is executable by effective uid/gid.
-o File is owned by effective uid.
-R File is readable by real uid/gid.
-W File is writable by real uid/gid.
-X File is executable by real uid/gid.
-O File is owned by real uid.
-e File exists.
-z File has zero size (is empty).
-s File has nonzero size (returns size in bytes).
-f File is a plain file.
-d File is a directory.
-l File is a symbolic link (false if symlinks aren't
supported by the file system).
-p File is a named pipe (FIFO), or Filehandle is a pipe.
-S File is a socket.
-b File is a block special file.
-c File is a character special file.
-t Filehandle is opened to a tty.
-u File has setuid bit set.
-g File has setgid bit set.
-k File has sticky bit set.
-T File is an ASCII or UTF-8 text file (heuristic guess).
-B File is a "binary" file (opposite of -T).
-M Script start time minus file modification time, in days.
-A Same for access time.
-C Same for inode change time (Unix, may differ for other
platforms)
Example:
while (<>) {
chomp;
next unless -f $_; # ignore specials
#...
}
Note that "-s/a/b/" does not do a negated substitution. Saying
"-exp($foo)" still works as expected, however: only single letters
following a minus are interpreted as file tests.
These operators are exempt from the "looks like a function rule"
described above. That is, an opening parenthesis after the operator
does not affect how much of the following code constitutes the
argument. Put the opening parentheses before the operator to
separate it from code that follows (this applies only to operators
with higher precedence than unary operators, of course):
-s($file) + 1024 # probably wrong; same as -s($file + 1024)
(-s $file) + 1024 # correct
The interpretation of the file permission operators "-r", "-R",
"-w", "-W", "-x", and "-X" is by default based solely on the mode of
the file and the uids and gids of the user. There may be other
reasons you can't actually read, write, or execute the file: for
example network filesystem access controls, ACLs (access control
lists), read-only filesystems, and unrecognized executable formats.
Note that the use of these six specific operators to verify if some
operation is possible is usually a mistake, because it may be open
to race conditions.
Also note that, for the superuser on the local filesystems, the
"-r", "-R", "-w", and "-W" tests always return 1, and "-x" and "-X"
return 1 if any execute bit is set in the mode. Scripts run by the
superuser may thus need to do a "stat" to determine the actual mode
of the file, or temporarily set their effective uid to something
else.
If you are using ACLs, there is a pragma called "filetest" that may
produce more accurate results than the bare "stat" mode bits. When
under "use filetest 'access'", the above-mentioned filetests test
whether the permission can(not) be granted using the access(2)
family of system calls. Also note that the "-x" and "-X" tests may
under this pragma return true even if there are no execute
permission bits set (nor any extra execute permission ACLs). This
strangeness is due to the underlying system calls' definitions.
Note also that, due to the implementation of "use filetest
'access'", the "_" special filehandle won't cache the results of the
file tests when this pragma is in effect. Read the documentation
for the "filetest" pragma for more information.
The "-T" and "-B" tests work as follows. The first block or so of
the file is examined to see if it is valid UTF-8 that includes non-
ASCII characters. If so, it's a "-T" file. Otherwise, that same
portion of the file is examined for odd characters such as strange
control codes or characters with the high bit set. If more than a
third of the characters are strange, it's a "-B" file; otherwise
it's a "-T" file. Also, any file containing a zero byte in the
examined portion is considered a binary file. (If executed within
the scope of a use locale which includes "LC_CTYPE", odd characters
are anything that isn't a printable nor space in the current
locale.) If "-T" or "-B" is used on a filehandle, the current IO
buffer is examined rather than the first block. Both "-T" and "-B"
return true on an empty file, or a file at EOF when testing a
filehandle. Because you have to read a file to do the "-T" test, on
most occasions you want to use a "-f" against the file first, as in
"next unless -f $file && -T $file".
If any of the file tests (or either the "stat" or "lstat" operator)
is given the special filehandle consisting of a solitary underline,
then the stat structure of the previous file test (or "stat"
operator) is used, saving a system call. (This doesn't work with
"-t", and you need to remember that "lstat" and "-l" leave values in
the stat structure for the symbolic link, not the real file.)
(Also, if the stat buffer was filled by an "lstat" call, "-T" and
"-B" will reset it with the results of "stat _"). Example:
print "Can do.\n" if -r $x || -w _ || -x _;
stat($filename);
print "Readable\n" if -r _;
print "Writable\n" if -w _;
print "Executable\n" if -x _;
print "Setuid\n" if -u _;
print "Setgid\n" if -g _;
print "Sticky\n" if -k _;
print "Text\n" if -T _;
print "Binary\n" if -B _;
As of Perl 5.10.0, as a form of purely syntactic sugar, you can
stack file test operators, in a way that "-f -w -x $file" is
equivalent to "-x $file && -w _ && -f _". (This is only fancy
syntax: if you use the return value of "-f $file" as an argument to
another filetest operator, no special magic will happen.)
Portability issues: "-X" in perlport.
To avoid confusing would-be users of your code with mysterious
syntax errors, put something like this at the top of your script:
use v5.10; # so filetest ops can stack
abs VALUE
abs Returns the absolute value of its argument. If VALUE is omitted,
uses $_.
accept NEWSOCKET,GENERICSOCKET
Accepts an incoming socket connect, just as accept(2) does. Returns
the packed address if it succeeded, false otherwise. See the
example in "Sockets: Client/Server Communication" in perlipc.
On systems that support a close-on-exec flag on files, the flag will
be set for the newly opened file descriptor, as determined by the
value of $^F. See "$^F" in perlvar.
alarm SECONDS
alarm
Arranges to have a SIGALRM delivered to this process after the
specified number of wallclock seconds has elapsed. If SECONDS is
not specified, the value stored in $_ is used. (On some machines,
unfortunately, the elapsed time may be up to one second less or more
than you specified because of how seconds are counted, and process
scheduling may delay the delivery of the signal even further.)
Only one timer may be counting at once. Each call disables the
previous timer, and an argument of 0 may be supplied to cancel the
previous timer without starting a new one. The returned value is
the amount of time remaining on the previous timer.
For delays of finer granularity than one second, the Time::HiRes
module (from CPAN, and starting from Perl 5.8 part of the standard
distribution) provides "ualarm". You may also use Perl's four-
argument version of "select" leaving the first three arguments
undefined, or you might be able to use the "syscall" interface to
access setitimer(2) if your system supports it. See perlfaq8 for
details.
It is usually a mistake to intermix "alarm" and "sleep" calls,
because "sleep" may be internally implemented on your system with
"alarm".
If you want to use "alarm" to time out a system call you need to use
an "eval"/"die" pair. You can't rely on the alarm causing the
system call to fail with $! set to "EINTR" because Perl sets up
signal handlers to restart system calls on some systems. Using
"eval"/"die" always works, modulo the caveats given in "Signals" in
perlipc.
eval {
local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "alarm\n" }; # NB: \n required
alarm $timeout;
my $nread = sysread $socket, $buffer, $size;
alarm 0;
};
if ($@) {
die unless $@ eq "alarm\n"; # propagate unexpected errors
# timed out
}
else {
# didn't
}
For more information see perlipc.
Portability issues: "alarm" in perlport.
atan2 Y,X
Returns the arctangent of Y/X in the range -PI to PI.
For the tangent operation, you may use the "Math::Trig::tan"
function, or use the familiar relation:
sub tan { sin($_[0]) / cos($_[0]) }
The return value for "atan2(0,0)" is implementation-defined; consult
your atan2(3) manpage for more information.
Portability issues: "atan2" in perlport.
bind SOCKET,NAME
Binds a network address to a socket, just as bind(2) does. Returns
true if it succeeded, false otherwise. NAME should be a packed
address of the appropriate type for the socket. See the examples in
"Sockets: Client/Server Communication" in perlipc.
binmode FILEHANDLE, LAYER
binmode FILEHANDLE
Arranges for FILEHANDLE to be read or written in "binary" or "text"
mode on systems where the run-time libraries distinguish between
binary and text files. If FILEHANDLE is an expression, the value is
taken as the name of the filehandle. Returns true on success,
otherwise it returns "undef" and sets $! (errno).
On some systems (in general, DOS- and Windows-based systems)
"binmode" is necessary when you're not working with a text file.
For the sake of portability it is a good idea always to use it when
appropriate, and never to use it when it isn't appropriate. Also,
people can set their I/O to be by default UTF8-encoded Unicode, not
bytes.
In other words: regardless of platform, use "binmode" on binary
data, like images, for example.
If LAYER is present it is a single string, but may contain multiple
directives. The directives alter the behaviour of the filehandle.
When LAYER is present, using binmode on a text file makes sense.
If LAYER is omitted or specified as ":raw" the filehandle is made
suitable for passing binary data. This includes turning off
possible CRLF translation and marking it as bytes (as opposed to
Unicode characters). Note that, despite what may be implied in
"Programming Perl" (the Camel, 3rd edition) or elsewhere, ":raw" is
not simply the inverse of ":crlf". Other layers that would affect
the binary nature of the stream are also disabled. See PerlIO, and
the discussion about the PERLIO environment variable in perlrun.
The ":bytes", ":crlf", ":utf8", and any other directives of the form
":...", are called I/O layers. The open pragma can be used to
establish default I/O layers.
The LAYER parameter of the "binmode" function is described as
"DISCIPLINE" in "Programming Perl, 3rd Edition". However, since the
publishing of this book, by many known as "Camel III", the consensus
of the naming of this functionality has moved from "discipline" to
"layer". All documentation of this version of Perl therefore refers
to "layers" rather than to "disciplines". Now back to the regularly
scheduled documentation...
To mark FILEHANDLE as UTF-8, use ":utf8" or :encoding(UTF-8).
":utf8" just marks the data as UTF-8 without further checking, while
:encoding(UTF-8) checks the data for actually being valid UTF-8.
More details can be found in PerlIO::encoding.
In general, "binmode" should be called after "open" but before any
I/O is done on the filehandle. Calling "binmode" normally flushes
any pending buffered output data (and perhaps pending input data) on
the handle. An exception to this is the ":encoding" layer that
changes the default character encoding of the handle. The
":encoding" layer sometimes needs to be called in mid-stream, and it
doesn't flush the stream. ":encoding" also implicitly pushes on top
of itself the ":utf8" layer because internally Perl operates on
UTF8-encoded Unicode characters.
The operating system, device drivers, C libraries, and Perl run-time
system all conspire to let the programmer treat a single character
("\n") as the line terminator, irrespective of external
representation. On many operating systems, the native text file
representation matches the internal representation, but on some
platforms the external representation of "\n" is made up of more
than one character.
All variants of Unix, Mac OS (old and new), and Stream_LF files on
VMS use a single character to end each line in the external
representation of text (even though that single character is
CARRIAGE RETURN on old, pre-Darwin flavors of Mac OS, and is LINE
FEED on Unix and most VMS files). In other systems like OS/2, DOS,
and the various flavors of MS-Windows, your program sees a "\n" as a
simple "\cJ", but what's stored in text files are the two characters
"\cM\cJ". That means that if you don't use "binmode" on these
systems, "\cM\cJ" sequences on disk will be converted to "\n" on
input, and any "\n" in your program will be converted back to
"\cM\cJ" on output. This is what you want for text files, but it
can be disastrous for binary files.
Another consequence of using "binmode" (on some systems) is that
special end-of-file markers will be seen as part of the data stream.
For systems from the Microsoft family this means that, if your
binary data contain "\cZ", the I/O subsystem will regard it as the
end of the file, unless you use "binmode".
"binmode" is important not only for "readline" and "print"
operations, but also when using "read", "seek", "sysread",
"syswrite" and "tell" (see perlport for more details). See the $/
and "$\" variables in perlvar for how to manually set your input and
output line-termination sequences.
Portability issues: "binmode" in perlport.
bless REF,CLASSNAME
bless REF
"bless" tells Perl to mark the item referred to by "REF" as an
object in a package. The two-argument version of "bless" is always
preferable unless there is a specific reason to not use it.
• Bless the referred-to item into a specific package (recommended
form):
bless $ref, $package;
The two-argument form adds the object to the package specified
as the second argument.
• Bless the referred-to item into package "main":
bless $ref, "";
If the second argument is an empty string, "bless" adds the
object to package "main".
• Bless the referred-to item into the current package (not
inheritable):
bless $ref;
If "bless" is used without its second argument, the object is
created in the current package. The second argument should
always be supplied if a derived class might inherit a method
executing "bless". Because it is a potential source of bugs,
one-argument "bless" is discouraged.
See perlobj for more about the blessing (and blessings) of objects.
"bless" returns its first argument, the supplied reference, as the
value of the function; since "bless" is commonly the last thing
executed in constructors, this means that the reference to the
object is returned as the constructor's value and allows the caller
to immediately use this returned object in method calls.
"CLASSNAME" should always be a mixed-case name, as all-uppercase and
all-lowercase names are meant to be used only for Perl builtin types
and pragmas, respectively. Avoid creating all-uppercase or all-
lowercase package names to prevent confusion.
Also avoid "bless"ing things into the class name 0; this will cause
code which (erroneously) checks the result of "ref" to see if a
reference is "bless"ed to fail, as "0", a falsy value, is returned.
See "Perl Modules" in perlmod for more details.
break
Break out of a "given" block.
"break" is available only if the "switch" feature is enabled or if
it is prefixed with "CORE::". The "switch" feature is enabled
automatically with a "use v5.10" (or higher) declaration in the
current scope.
caller EXPR
caller
Returns the context of the current pure perl subroutine call. In
scalar context, returns the caller's package name if there is a
caller (that is, if we're in a subroutine or "eval" or "require")
and the undefined value otherwise. "caller" never returns XS subs
and they are skipped. The next pure perl sub will appear instead of
the XS sub in caller's return values. In list context, caller
returns
# 0 1 2
my ($package, $filename, $line) = caller;
Like "__FILE__" and "__LINE__", the filename and line number
returned here may be altered by the mechanism described at "Plain
Old Comments (Not!)" in perlsyn.
With EXPR, it returns some extra information that the debugger uses
to print a stack trace. The value of EXPR indicates how many call
frames to go back before the current one.
# 0 1 2 3 4
my ($package, $filename, $line, $subroutine, $hasargs,
# 5 6 7 8 9 10
$wantarray, $evaltext, $is_require, $hints, $bitmask, $hinthash)
= caller($i);
Here, $subroutine is the function that the caller called (rather
than the function containing the caller). Note that $subroutine may
be "(eval)" if the frame is not a subroutine call, but an "eval".
In such a case additional elements $evaltext and $is_require are
set: $is_require is true if the frame is created by a "require" or
"use" statement, $evaltext contains the text of the "eval EXPR"
statement. In particular, for an "eval BLOCK" statement,
$subroutine is "(eval)", but $evaltext is undefined. (Note also
that each "use" statement creates a "require" frame inside an "eval
EXPR" frame.) $subroutine may also be "(unknown)" if this
particular subroutine happens to have been deleted from the symbol
table. $hasargs is true if a new instance of @_ was set up for the
frame. $hints and $bitmask contain pragmatic hints that the caller
was compiled with. $hints corresponds to $^H, and $bitmask
corresponds to "${^WARNING_BITS}". The $hints and $bitmask values
are subject to change between versions of Perl, and are not meant
for external use.
$hinthash is a reference to a hash containing the value of "%^H"
when the caller was compiled, or "undef" if "%^H" was empty. Do not
modify the values of this hash, as they are the actual values stored
in the optree.
Note that the only types of call frames that are visible are
subroutine calls and "eval". Other forms of context, such as "while"
or "foreach" loops or "try" blocks are not considered interesting to
"caller", as they do not alter the behaviour of the "return"
expression.
Furthermore, when called from within the DB package in list context,
and with an argument, caller returns more detailed information: it
sets the list variable @DB::args to be the arguments with which the
subroutine was invoked.
Be aware that the optimizer might have optimized call frames away
before "caller" had a chance to get the information. That means
that caller(N) might not return information about the call frame you
expect it to, for "N > 1". In particular, @DB::args might have
information from the previous time "caller" was called.
Be aware that setting @DB::args is best effort, intended for
debugging or generating backtraces, and should not be relied upon.
In particular, as @_ contains aliases to the caller's arguments,
Perl does not take a copy of @_, so @DB::args will contain
modifications the subroutine makes to @_ or its contents, not the
original values at call time. @DB::args, like @_, does not hold
explicit references to its elements, so under certain cases its
elements may have become freed and reallocated for other variables
or temporary values. Finally, a side effect of the current
implementation is that the effects of "shift @_" can normally be
undone (but not "pop @_" or other splicing, and not if a reference
to @_ has been taken, and subject to the caveat about reallocated
elements), so @DB::args is actually a hybrid of the current state
and initial state of @_. Buyer beware.
chdir EXPR
chdir FILEHANDLE
chdir DIRHANDLE
chdir
Changes the working directory to EXPR, if possible. If EXPR is
omitted, changes to the directory specified by $ENV{HOME}, if set;
if not, changes to the directory specified by $ENV{LOGDIR}. (Under
VMS, the variable $ENV{'SYS$LOGIN'} is also checked, and used if it
is set.) If neither is set, "chdir" does nothing and fails. It
returns true on success, false otherwise. See the example under
"die".
On systems that support fchdir(2), you may pass a filehandle or
directory handle as the argument. On systems that don't support
fchdir(2), passing handles raises an exception.
chmod LIST
Changes the permissions of a list of files. The first element of
the list must be the numeric mode, which should probably be an octal
number, and which definitely should not be a string of octal digits:
0644 is okay, but "0644" is not. Returns the number of files
successfully changed. See also "oct" if all you have is a string.
my $cnt = chmod 0755, "foo", "bar";
chmod 0755, @executables;
my $mode = "0644"; chmod $mode, "foo"; # !!! sets mode to
# --w----r-T
my $mode = "0644"; chmod oct($mode), "foo"; # this is better
my $mode = 0644; chmod $mode, "foo"; # this is best
On systems that support fchmod(2), you may pass filehandles among
the files. On systems that don't support fchmod(2), passing
filehandles raises an exception. Filehandles must be passed as
globs or glob references to be recognized; barewords are considered
filenames.
open(my $fh, "<", "foo");
my $perm = (stat $fh)[2] & 07777;
chmod($perm | 0600, $fh);
You can also import the symbolic "S_I*" constants from the "Fcntl"
module:
use Fcntl qw( :mode );
chmod S_IRWXU|S_IRGRP|S_IXGRP|S_IROTH|S_IXOTH, @executables;
# Identical to the chmod 0755 of the example above.
Portability issues: "chmod" in perlport.
chomp VARIABLE
chomp( LIST )
chomp
This safer version of "chop" removes any trailing string that
corresponds to the current value of $/ (also known as
$INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR in the "English" module). It returns the
total number of characters removed from all its arguments. It's
often used to remove the newline from the end of an input record
when you're worried that the final record may be missing its
newline. When in paragraph mode ("$/ = ''"), it removes all
trailing newlines from the string. When in slurp mode ("$/ =
undef") or fixed-length record mode ($/ is a reference to an integer
or the like; see perlvar), "chomp" won't remove anything. If
VARIABLE is omitted, it chomps $_. Example:
while (<>) {
chomp; # avoid \n on last field
my @array = split(/:/);
# ...
}
If VARIABLE is a hash, it chomps the hash's values, but not its
keys, resetting the "each" iterator in the process.
You can actually chomp anything that's an lvalue, including an
assignment:
chomp(my $cwd = `pwd`);
chomp(my $answer = <STDIN>);
If you chomp a list, each element is chomped, and the total number
of characters removed is returned.
Note that parentheses are necessary when you're chomping anything
that is not a simple variable. This is because "chomp $cwd =
`pwd`;" is interpreted as "(chomp $cwd) = `pwd`;", rather than as
"chomp( $cwd = `pwd` )" which you might expect. Similarly, "chomp
$x, $y" is interpreted as "chomp($x), $y" rather than as "chomp($x,
$y)".
chop VARIABLE
chop( LIST )
chop
Chops off the last character of a string and returns the character
chopped. It is much more efficient than "s/.$//s" because it
neither scans nor copies the string. If VARIABLE is omitted, chops
$_. If VARIABLE is a hash, it chops the hash's values, but not its
keys, resetting the "each" iterator in the process.
You can actually chop anything that's an lvalue, including an
assignment.
If you chop a list, each element is chopped. Only the value of the
last "chop" is returned.
Note that "chop" returns the last character. To return all but the
last character, use "substr($string, 0, -1)".
See also "chomp".
chown LIST
Changes the owner (and group) of a list of files. The first two
elements of the list must be the numeric uid and gid, in that order.
A value of -1 in either position is interpreted by most systems to
leave that value unchanged. Returns the number of files
successfully changed.
my $cnt = chown $uid, $gid, 'foo', 'bar';
chown $uid, $gid, @filenames;
On systems that support fchown(2), you may pass filehandles among
the files. On systems that don't support fchown(2), passing
filehandles raises an exception. Filehandles must be passed as
globs or glob references to be recognized; barewords are considered
filenames.
Here's an example that looks up nonnumeric uids in the passwd file:
print "User: ";
chomp(my $user = <STDIN>);
print "Files: ";
chomp(my $pattern = <STDIN>);
my ($login,$pass,$uid,$gid) = getpwnam($user)
or die "$user not in passwd file";
my @ary = glob($pattern); # expand filenames
chown $uid, $gid, @ary;
On most systems, you are not allowed to change the ownership of the
file unless you're the superuser, although you should be able to
change the group to any of your secondary groups. On insecure
systems, these restrictions may be relaxed, but this is not a
portable assumption. On POSIX systems, you can detect this
condition this way:
use POSIX qw(pathconf _PC_CHOWN_RESTRICTED);
my $can_chown_giveaway =
! pathconf($path_of_interest, _PC_CHOWN_RESTRICTED);
Portability issues: "chown" in perlport.
chr NUMBER
chr Returns the character represented by that NUMBER in the character
set. For example, chr(65) is "A" in either ASCII or Unicode, and
chr(0x263a) is a Unicode smiley face.
Negative values give the Unicode replacement character
(chr(0xfffd)), except under the bytes pragma, where the low eight
bits of the value (truncated to an integer) are used.
If NUMBER is omitted, uses $_.
For the reverse, use "ord".
Note that characters from 128 to 255 (inclusive) are by default
internally not encoded as UTF-8 for backward compatibility reasons.
See perlunicode for more about Unicode.
chroot FILENAME
chroot
This function works like the system call by the same name: it makes
the named directory the new root directory for all further pathnames
that begin with a "/" by your process and all its children. (It
doesn't change your current working directory, which is unaffected.)
For security reasons, this call is restricted to the superuser. If
FILENAME is omitted, does a "chroot" to $_.
NOTE: It is mandatory for security to chdir("/") ("chdir" to the
root directory) immediately after a "chroot", otherwise the current
working directory may be outside of the new root.
Portability issues: "chroot" in perlport.
class NAMESPACE
class NAMESPACE VERSION
class NAMESPACE BLOCK
class NAMESPACE VERSION BLOCK
Declares the BLOCK or the rest of the compilation unit as being in
the given namespace, which implements an object class. This behaves
similarly to "package", except that the newly-created package
behaves as a class.
close FILEHANDLE
close
Closes the file or pipe associated with the filehandle, flushes the
IO buffers, and closes the system file descriptor. Returns true if
those operations succeed, and if no error was reported by any PerlIO
layer, and there was no existing error on the filehandle.
If there was an existing error on the filehandle, close will return
false and $! will be set to the error from the failing operation, so
you can safely use its value when reporting the error.
Closes the currently selected filehandle if the argument is omitted.
You don't have to close FILEHANDLE if you are immediately going to
do another "open" on it, because "open" closes it for you. (See
"open".) However, an explicit "close" on an input file resets the
line counter ($.), while the implicit close done by "open" does not.
If the filehandle came from a piped open, "close" returns false if
one of the other syscalls involved fails or if its program exits
with non-zero status. If the only problem was that the program
exited non-zero, $! will be set to 0. Closing a pipe also waits for
the process executing on the pipe to exit--in case you wish to look
at the output of the pipe afterwards--and implicitly puts the exit
status value of that command into $? and "${^CHILD_ERROR_NATIVE}".
If there are multiple threads running, "close" on a filehandle from
a piped open returns true without waiting for the child process to
terminate, if the filehandle is still open in another thread.
Closing the read end of a pipe before the process writing to it at
the other end is done writing results in the writer receiving a
SIGPIPE. If the other end can't handle that, be sure to read all
the data before closing the pipe.
Example:
open(OUTPUT, '|sort >foo') # pipe to sort
or die "Can't start sort: $!";
#... # print stuff to output
close OUTPUT # wait for sort to finish
or warn $! ? "Error closing sort pipe: $!"
: "Exit status $? from sort";
open(INPUT, 'foo') # get sort's results
or die "Can't open 'foo' for input: $!";
FILEHANDLE may be an expression whose value can be used as an
indirect filehandle, usually the real filehandle name or an
autovivified handle.
If an error occurs when perl implicitly closes a handle, perl will
produce a warning. Explicitly calling close on the handle prevents
that warning.
closedir DIRHANDLE
Closes a directory opened by "opendir" and returns the success of
that system call.
connect SOCKET,NAME
Attempts to connect to a remote socket, just like connect(2).
Returns true if it succeeded, false otherwise. NAME should be a
packed address of the appropriate type for the socket. See the
examples in "Sockets: Client/Server Communication" in perlipc.
continue BLOCK
continue
When followed by a BLOCK, "continue" is actually a flow control
statement rather than a function. If there is a "continue" BLOCK
attached to a BLOCK (typically in a "while" or "foreach"), it is
always executed just before the conditional is about to be evaluated
again, just like the third part of a "for" loop in C. Thus it can
be used to increment a loop variable, even when the loop has been
continued via the "next" statement (which is similar to the C
"continue" statement).
"last", "next", or "redo" may appear within a "continue" block;
"last" and "redo" behave as if they had been executed within the
main block. So will "next", but since it will execute a "continue"
block, it may be more entertaining.
while (EXPR) {
### redo always comes here
do_something;
} continue {
### next always comes here
do_something_else;
# then back to the top to re-check EXPR
}
### last always comes here
Omitting the "continue" section is equivalent to using an empty one,
logically enough, so "next" goes directly back to check the
condition at the top of the loop.
When there is no BLOCK, "continue" is a function that falls through
the current "when" or "default" block instead of iterating a
dynamically enclosing "foreach" or exiting a lexically enclosing
"given". In Perl 5.14 and earlier, this form of "continue" was only
available when the "switch" feature was enabled. See feature and
"Switch Statements" in perlsyn for more information.
cos EXPR
cos Returns the cosine of EXPR (expressed in radians). If EXPR is
omitted, takes the cosine of $_.
For the inverse cosine operation, you may use the "Math::Trig::acos"
function, or use this relation:
sub acos { atan2( sqrt(1 - $_[0] * $_[0]), $_[0] ) }
crypt PLAINTEXT,SALT
Creates a digest string exactly like the crypt(3) function in the C
library (assuming that you actually have a version there that has
not been extirpated as a potential munition).
"crypt" is a one-way hash function. The PLAINTEXT and SALT are
turned into a short string, called a digest, which is returned. The
same PLAINTEXT and SALT will always return the same string, but
there is no (known) way to get the original PLAINTEXT from the hash.
Small changes in the PLAINTEXT or SALT will result in large changes
in the digest.
There is no decrypt function. This function isn't all that useful
for cryptography (for that, look for Crypt modules on your nearby
CPAN mirror) and the name "crypt" is a bit of a misnomer. Instead
it is primarily used to check if two pieces of text are the same
without having to transmit or store the text itself. An example is
checking if a correct password is given. The digest of the password
is stored, not the password itself. The user types in a password
that is "crypt"'d with the same salt as the stored digest. If the
two digests match, the password is correct.
When verifying an existing digest string you should use the digest
as the salt (like "crypt($plain, $digest) eq $digest"). The SALT
used to create the digest is visible as part of the digest. This
ensures "crypt" will hash the new string with the same salt as the
digest. This allows your code to work with the standard "crypt" and
with more exotic implementations. In other words, assume nothing
about the returned string itself nor about how many bytes of SALT
may matter.
Traditionally the result is a string of 13 bytes: two first bytes of
the salt, followed by 11 bytes from the set "[./0-9A-Za-z]", and
only the first eight bytes of PLAINTEXT mattered. But alternative
hashing schemes (like MD5), higher level security schemes (like C2),
and implementations on non-Unix platforms may produce different
strings.
When choosing a new salt create a random two character string whose
characters come from the set "[./0-9A-Za-z]" (like "join '', ('.',
'/', 0..9, 'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z')[rand 64, rand 64]"). This set of
characters is just a recommendation; the characters allowed in the
salt depend solely on your system's crypt library, and Perl can't
restrict what salts "crypt" accepts.
Here's an example that makes sure that whoever runs this program
knows their password:
my $pwd = (getpwuid($<))[1];
system "stty -echo";
print "Password: ";
chomp(my $word = <STDIN>);
print "\n";
system "stty echo";
if (crypt($word, $pwd) ne $pwd) {
die "Sorry...\n";
} else {
print "ok\n";
}
Of course, typing in your own password to whoever asks you for it is
unwise.
The "crypt" function is unsuitable for hashing large quantities of
data, not least of all because you can't get the information back.
Look at the Digest module for more robust algorithms.
If using "crypt" on a Unicode string (which potentially has
characters with codepoints above 255), Perl tries to make sense of
the situation by trying to downgrade (a copy of) the string back to
an eight-bit byte string before calling "crypt" (on that copy). If
that works, good. If not, "crypt" dies with "Wide character in
crypt".
Portability issues: "crypt" in perlport.
dbmclose HASH
[This function has been largely superseded by the "untie" function.]
Breaks the binding between a DBM file and a hash.
Portability issues: "dbmclose" in perlport.
dbmopen HASH,DBNAME,MASK
[This function has been largely superseded by the "tie" function.]
This binds a dbm(3), ndbm(3), sdbm(3), gdbm(3), or Berkeley DB file
to a hash. HASH is the name of the hash. (Unlike normal "open",
the first argument is not a filehandle, even though it looks like
one). DBNAME is the name of the database (without the .dir or .pag
extension if any). If the database does not exist, it is created
with protection specified by MASK (as modified by the "umask"). To
prevent creation of the database if it doesn't exist, you may
specify a MASK of 0, and the function will return a false value if
it can't find an existing database. If your system supports only
the older DBM functions, you may make only one "dbmopen" call in
your program. In older versions of Perl, if your system had neither
DBM nor ndbm, calling "dbmopen" produced a fatal error; it now falls
back to sdbm(3).
If you don't have write access to the DBM file, you can only read
hash variables, not set them. If you want to test whether you can
write, either use file tests or try setting a dummy hash entry
inside an "eval" to trap the error.
Note that functions such as "keys" and "values" may return huge
lists when used on large DBM files. You may prefer to use the
"each" function to iterate over large DBM files. Example:
# print out history file offsets
dbmopen(%HIST,'/usr/lib/news/history',0666);
while (($key,$val) = each %HIST) {
print $key, ' = ', unpack('L',$val), "\n";
}
dbmclose(%HIST);
See also AnyDBM_File for a more general description of the pros and
cons of the various dbm approaches, as well as DB_File for a
particularly rich implementation.
You can control which DBM library you use by loading that library
before you call "dbmopen":
use DB_File;
dbmopen(%NS_Hist, "$ENV{HOME}/.netscape/history.db")
or die "Can't open netscape history file: $!";
Portability issues: "dbmopen" in perlport.
defined EXPR
defined
Returns a Boolean value telling whether EXPR has a value other than
the undefined value "undef". If EXPR is not present, $_ is checked.
Many operations return "undef" to indicate failure, end of file,
system error, uninitialized variable, and other exceptional
conditions. This function allows you to distinguish "undef" from
other values. (A simple Boolean test will not distinguish among
"undef", zero, the empty string, and "0", which are all equally
false.) Note that since "undef" is a valid scalar, its presence
doesn't necessarily indicate an exceptional condition: "pop" returns
"undef" when its argument is an empty array, or when the element to
return happens to be "undef".
You may also use defined(&func) to check whether subroutine "func"
has ever been defined. The return value is unaffected by any
forward declarations of "func". A subroutine that is not defined
may still be callable: its package may have an "AUTOLOAD" method
that makes it spring into existence the first time that it is
called; see perlsub.
Use of "defined" on aggregates (hashes and arrays) is no longer
supported. It used to report whether memory for that aggregate had
ever been allocated. You should instead use a simple test for size:
if (@an_array) { print "has array elements\n" }
if (%a_hash) { print "has hash members\n" }
When used on a hash element, it tells you whether the value is
defined, not whether the key exists in the hash. Use "exists" for
the latter purpose.
Examples:
print if defined $switch{D};
print "$val\n" while defined($val = pop(@ary));
die "Can't readlink $sym: $!"
unless defined($value = readlink $sym);
sub foo { defined &$bar ? $bar->(@_) : die "No bar"; }
$debugging = 0 unless defined $debugging;
Note: Many folks tend to overuse "defined" and are then surprised
to discover that the number 0 and "" (the zero-length string) are,
in fact, defined values. For example, if you say
"ab" =~ /a(.*)b/;
The pattern match succeeds and $1 is defined, although it matched
"nothing". It didn't really fail to match anything. Rather, it
matched something that happened to be zero characters long. This is
all very above-board and honest. When a function returns an
undefined value, it's an admission that it couldn't give you an
honest answer. So you should use "defined" only when questioning
the integrity of what you're trying to do. At other times, a simple
comparison to 0 or "" is what you want.
See also "undef", "exists", "ref".
delete EXPR
Given an expression that specifies an element or slice of a hash,
"delete" deletes the specified elements from that hash so that
"exists" on that element no longer returns true. Setting a hash
element to the undefined value does not remove its key, but deleting
it does; see "exists".
In list context, usually returns the value or values deleted, or the
last such element in scalar context. The return list's length
corresponds to that of the argument list: deleting non-existent
elements returns the undefined value in their corresponding
positions. Since Perl 5.28, a key/value hash slice can be passed to
"delete", and the return value is a list of key/value pairs (two
elements for each item deleted from the hash).
"delete" may also be used on arrays and array slices, but its
behavior is less straightforward. Although "exists" will return
false for deleted entries, deleting array elements never changes
indices of existing values; use "shift" or "splice" for that.
However, if any deleted elements fall at the end of an array, the
array's size shrinks to the position of the highest element that
still tests true for "exists", or to 0 if none do. In other words,
an array won't have trailing nonexistent elements after a delete.
WARNING: Calling "delete" on array values is strongly discouraged.
The notion of deleting or checking the existence of Perl array
elements is not conceptually coherent, and can lead to surprising
behavior.
Deleting from %ENV modifies the environment. Deleting from a hash
tied to a DBM file deletes the entry from the DBM file. Deleting
from a "tied" hash or array may not necessarily return anything; it
depends on the implementation of the "tied" package's DELETE method,
which may do whatever it pleases.
The "delete local EXPR" construct localizes the deletion to the
current block at run time. Until the block exits, elements locally
deleted temporarily no longer exist. See "Localized deletion of
elements of composite types" in perlsub.
my %hash = (foo => 11, bar => 22, baz => 33);
my $scalar = delete $hash{foo}; # $scalar is 11
$scalar = delete @hash{qw(foo bar)}; # $scalar is 22
my @array = delete @hash{qw(foo baz)}; # @array is (undef,33)
The following (inefficiently) deletes all the values of %HASH and
@ARRAY:
foreach my $key (keys %HASH) {
delete $HASH{$key};
}
foreach my $index (0 .. $#ARRAY) {
delete $ARRAY[$index];
}
And so do these:
delete @HASH{keys %HASH};
delete @ARRAY[0 .. $#ARRAY];
But both are slower than assigning the empty list or undefining
%HASH or @ARRAY, which is the customary way to empty out an
aggregate:
%HASH = (); # completely empty %HASH
undef %HASH; # forget %HASH ever existed
@ARRAY = (); # completely empty @ARRAY
undef @ARRAY; # forget @ARRAY ever existed
The EXPR can be arbitrarily complicated provided its final operation
is an element or slice of an aggregate:
delete $ref->[$x][$y]{$key};
delete $ref->[$x][$y]->@{$key1, $key2, @morekeys};
delete $ref->[$x][$y][$index];
delete $ref->[$x][$y]->@[$index1, $index2, @moreindices];
die LIST
"die" raises an exception. Inside an "eval" the exception is
stuffed into $@ and the "eval" is terminated with the undefined
value. If the exception is outside of all enclosing "eval"s, then
the uncaught exception is printed to "STDERR" and perl exits with an
exit code indicating failure. If you need to exit the process with
a specific exit code, see "exit".
Equivalent examples:
die "Can't cd to spool: $!\n" unless chdir '/usr/spool/news';
chdir '/usr/spool/news' or die "Can't cd to spool: $!\n"
Most of the time, "die" is called with a string to use as the
exception. You may either give a single non-reference operand to
serve as the exception, or a list of two or more items, which will
be stringified and concatenated to make the exception.
If the string exception does not end in a newline, the current
script line number and input line number (if any) and a newline are
appended to it. Note that the "input line number" (also known as
"chunk") is subject to whatever notion of "line" happens to be
currently in effect, and is also available as the special variable
$.. See "$/" in perlvar and "$." in perlvar.
Hint: sometimes appending ", stopped" to your message will cause it
to make better sense when the string "at foo line 123" is appended.
Suppose you are running script "canasta".
die "/etc/games is no good";
die "/etc/games is no good, stopped";
produce, respectively
/etc/games is no good at canasta line 123.
/etc/games is no good, stopped at canasta line 123.
If LIST was empty or made an empty string, and $@ already contains
an exception value (typically from a previous "eval"), then that
value is reused after appending "\t...propagated". This is useful
for propagating exceptions:
eval { ... };
die unless $@ =~ /Expected exception/;
If LIST was empty or made an empty string, and $@ contains an object
reference that has a "PROPAGATE" method, that method will be called
with additional file and line number parameters. The return value
replaces the value in $@; i.e., as if "$@ = eval {
$@->PROPAGATE(__FILE__, __LINE__) };" were called.
If LIST was empty or made an empty string, and $@ is also empty,
then the string "Died" is used.
You can also call "die" with a reference argument, and if this is
trapped within an "eval", $@ contains that reference. This permits
more elaborate exception handling using objects that maintain
arbitrary state about the exception. Such a scheme is sometimes
preferable to matching particular string values of $@ with regular
expressions.
Because Perl stringifies uncaught exception messages before display,
you'll probably want to overload stringification operations on
exception objects. See overload for details about that. The
stringified message should be non-empty, and should end in a
newline, in order to fit in with the treatment of string exceptions.
Also, because an exception object reference cannot be stringified
without destroying it, Perl doesn't attempt to append location or
other information to a reference exception. If you want location
information with a complex exception object, you'll have to arrange
to put the location information into the object yourself.
Because $@ is a global variable, be careful that analyzing an
exception caught by "eval" doesn't replace the reference in the
global variable. It's easiest to make a local copy of the reference
before any manipulations. Here's an example:
use Scalar::Util "blessed";
eval { ... ; die Some::Module::Exception->new( FOO => "bar" ) };
if (my $ev_err = $@) {
if (blessed($ev_err)
&& $ev_err->isa("Some::Module::Exception")) {
# handle Some::Module::Exception
}
else {
# handle all other possible exceptions
}
}
If an uncaught exception results in interpreter exit, the exit code
is determined from the values of $! and $? with this pseudocode:
exit $! if $!; # errno
exit $? >> 8 if $? >> 8; # child exit status
exit 255; # last resort
As with "exit", $? is set prior to unwinding the call stack; any
"DESTROY" or "END" handlers can then alter this value, and thus
Perl's exit code.
The intent is to squeeze as much possible information about the
likely cause into the limited space of the system exit code.
However, as $! is the value of C's "errno", which can be set by any
system call, this means that the value of the exit code used by
"die" can be non-predictable, so should not be relied upon, other
than to be non-zero.
You can arrange for a callback to be run just before the "die" does
its deed, by setting the $SIG{__DIE__} hook. The associated handler
is called with the exception as an argument, and can change the
exception, if it sees fit, by calling "die" again. See "%SIG" in
perlvar for details on setting %SIG entries, and "eval" for some
examples. Although this feature was to be run only right before
your program was to exit, this is not currently so: the
$SIG{__DIE__} hook is currently called even inside "eval"ed
blocks/strings! If one wants the hook to do nothing in such
situations, put
die @_ if $^S;
as the first line of the handler (see "$^S" in perlvar). Because
this promotes strange action at a distance, this counterintuitive
behavior may be fixed in a future release.
See also "exit", "warn", and the Carp module.
do BLOCK
Not really a function. Returns the value of the last command in the
sequence of commands indicated by BLOCK. When modified by the
"while" or "until" loop modifier, executes the BLOCK once before
testing the loop condition. (On other statements the loop modifiers
test the conditional first.)
"do BLOCK" does not count as a loop, so the loop control statements
"next", "last", or "redo" cannot be used to leave or restart the
block. See perlsyn for alternative strategies.
do EXPR
Uses the value of EXPR as a filename and executes the contents of
the file as a Perl script:
# load the exact specified file (./ and ../ special-cased)
do '/foo/stat.pl';
do './stat.pl';
do '../foo/stat.pl';
# search for the named file within @INC
do 'stat.pl';
do 'foo/stat.pl';
"do './stat.pl'" is largely like
eval `cat stat.pl`;
except that it's more concise, runs no external processes, and keeps
track of the current filename for error messages. It also differs in
that code evaluated with "do FILE" cannot see lexicals in the
enclosing scope; "eval STRING" does. It's the same, however, in
that it does reparse the file every time you call it, so you
probably don't want to do this inside a loop.
Using "do" with a relative path (except for ./ and ../), like
do 'foo/stat.pl';
will search the @INC directories, and update %INC if the file is
found. See "@INC" in perlvar and "%INC" in perlvar for these
variables. In particular, note that whilst historically @INC
contained '.' (the current directory) making these two cases
equivalent, that is no longer necessarily the case, as '.' is not
included in @INC by default in perl versions 5.26.0 onwards.
Instead, perl will now warn:
do "stat.pl" failed, '.' is no longer in @INC;
did you mean do "./stat.pl"?
If "do" can read the file but cannot compile it, it returns "undef"
and sets an error message in $@. If "do" cannot read the file, it
returns undef and sets $! to the error. Always check $@ first, as
compilation could fail in a way that also sets $!. If the file is
successfully compiled, "do" returns the value of the last expression
evaluated.
Inclusion of library modules is better done with the "use" and
"require" operators, which also do automatic error checking and
raise an exception if there's a problem.
You might like to use "do" to read in a program configuration file.
Manual error checking can be done this way:
# Read in config files: system first, then user.
# Beware of using relative pathnames here.
for $file ("/share/prog/defaults.rc",
"$ENV{HOME}/.someprogrc")
{
unless ($return = do $file) {
warn "couldn't parse $file: $@" if $@;
warn "couldn't do $file: $!" unless defined $return;
warn "couldn't run $file" unless $return;
}
}
dump LABEL
dump EXPR
dump
This function causes an immediate core dump. See also the -u
command-line switch in perlrun, which does the same thing.
Primarily this is so that you can use the undump program (not
supplied) to turn your core dump into an executable binary after
having initialized all your variables at the beginning of the
program. When the new binary is executed it will begin by executing
a "goto LABEL" (with all the restrictions that "goto" suffers).
Think of it as a goto with an intervening core dump and
reincarnation. If "LABEL" is omitted, restarts the program from the
top. The "dump EXPR" form, available starting in Perl 5.18.0,
allows a name to be computed at run time, being otherwise identical
to "dump LABEL".
WARNING: Any files opened at the time of the dump will not be open
any more when the program is reincarnated, with possible resulting
confusion by Perl.
This function is now largely obsolete, mostly because it's very hard
to convert a core file into an executable. As of Perl 5.30, it must
be invoked as CORE::dump().
Unlike most named operators, this has the same precedence as
assignment. It is also exempt from the looks-like-a-function rule,
so "dump ("foo")."bar"" will cause "bar" to be part of the argument
to "dump".
Portability issues: "dump" in perlport.
each HASH
each ARRAY
When called on a hash in list context, returns a 2-element list
consisting of the key and value for the next element of a hash. In
Perl 5.12 and later only, it will also return the index and value
for the next element of an array so that you can iterate over it;
older Perls consider this a syntax error. When called in scalar
context, returns only the key (not the value) in a hash, or the
index in an array.
Hash entries are returned in an apparently random order. The actual
random order is specific to a given hash; the exact same series of
operations on two hashes may result in a different order for each
hash. Any insertion into the hash may change the order, as will any
deletion, with the exception that the most recent key returned by
"each" or "keys" may be deleted without changing the order. So long
as a given hash is unmodified you may rely on "keys", "values" and
"each" to repeatedly return the same order as each other. See
"Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec for details on why hash
order is randomized. Aside from the guarantees provided here the
exact details of Perl's hash algorithm and the hash traversal order
are subject to change in any release of Perl.
After "each" has returned all entries from the hash or array, the
next call to "each" returns the empty list in list context and
"undef" in scalar context; the next call following that one restarts
iteration. Each hash or array has its own internal iterator,
accessed by "each", "keys", and "values". The iterator is
implicitly reset when "each" has reached the end as just described;
it can be explicitly reset by calling "keys" or "values" on the hash
or array, or by referencing the hash (but not array) in list
context. If you add or delete a hash's elements while iterating
over it, the effect on the iterator is unspecified; for example,
entries may be skipped or duplicated--so don't do that. Exception:
It is always safe to delete the item most recently returned by
"each", so the following code works properly:
while (my ($key, $value) = each %hash) {
print $key, "\n";
delete $hash{$key}; # This is safe
}
Tied hashes may have a different ordering behaviour to perl's hash
implementation.
The iterator used by "each" is attached to the hash or array, and is
shared between all iteration operations applied to the same hash or
array. Thus all uses of "each" on a single hash or array advance
the same iterator location. All uses of "each" are also subject to
having the iterator reset by any use of "keys" or "values" on the
same hash or array, or by the hash (but not array) being referenced
in list context. This makes "each"-based loops quite fragile: it is
easy to arrive at such a loop with the iterator already part way
through the object, or to accidentally clobber the iterator state
during execution of the loop body. It's easy enough to explicitly
reset the iterator before starting a loop, but there is no way to
insulate the iterator state used by a loop from the iterator state
used by anything else that might execute during the loop body. To
avoid these problems, use a "foreach" loop rather than
"while"-"each".
This extends to using "each" on the result of an anonymous hash or
array constructor. A new underlying array or hash is created each
time so each will always start iterating from scratch, eg:
# loops forever
while (my ($key, $value) = each @{ +{ a => 1 } }) {
print "$key=$value\n";
}
This prints out your environment like the printenv(1) program, but
in a different order:
while (my ($key,$value) = each %ENV) {
print "$key=$value\n";
}
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowed "each" to
take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed
unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
As of Perl 5.18 you can use a bare "each" in a "while" loop, which
will set $_ on every iteration. If either an "each" expression or
an explicit assignment of an "each" expression to a scalar is used
as a "while"/"for" condition, then the condition actually tests for
definedness of the expression's value, not for its regular truth
value.
while (each %ENV) {
print "$_=$ENV{$_}\n";
}
To avoid confusing would-be users of your code who are running
earlier versions of Perl with mysterious syntax errors, put this
sort of thing at the top of your file to signal that your code will
work only on Perls of a recent vintage:
use v5.12; # so keys/values/each work on arrays
use v5.18; # so each assigns to $_ in a lone while test
See also "keys", "values", and "sort".
eof FILEHANDLE
eof ()
eof Returns 1 if the next read on FILEHANDLE will return end of file or
if FILEHANDLE is not open. FILEHANDLE may be an expression whose
value gives the real filehandle. (Note that this function actually
reads a character and then "ungetc"s it, so isn't useful in an
interactive context.) Do not read from a terminal file (or call
eof(FILEHANDLE) on it) after end-of-file is reached. File types
such as terminals may lose the end-of-file condition if you do.
An "eof" without an argument uses the last file read. Using eof()
with empty parentheses is different. It refers to the pseudo file
formed from the files listed on the command line and accessed via
the "<>" operator. Since "<>" isn't explicitly opened, as a normal
filehandle is, an eof() before "<>" has been used will cause @ARGV
to be examined to determine if input is available. Similarly, an
eof() after "<>" has returned end-of-file will assume you are
processing another @ARGV list, and if you haven't set @ARGV, will
read input from "STDIN"; see "I/O Operators" in perlop.
In a "while (<>)" loop, "eof" or eof(ARGV) can be used to detect the
end of each file, whereas eof() will detect the end of the very last
file only. Examples:
# reset line numbering on each input file
while (<>) {
next if /^\s*#/; # skip comments
print "$.\t$_";
} continue {
close ARGV if eof; # Not eof()!
}
# insert dashes just before last line of last file
while (<>) {
if (eof()) { # check for end of last file
print "--------------\n";
}
print;
last if eof(); # needed if we're reading from a terminal
}
Practical hint: you almost never need to use "eof" in Perl, because
the input operators typically return "undef" when they run out of
data or encounter an error.
eval EXPR
eval BLOCK
eval
"eval" in all its forms is used to execute a little Perl program,
trapping any errors encountered so they don't crash the calling
program.
Plain "eval" with no argument is just "eval EXPR", where the
expression is understood to be contained in $_. Thus there are only
two real "eval" forms; the one with an EXPR is often called "string
eval". In a string eval, the value of the expression (which is
itself determined within scalar context) is first parsed, and if
there were no errors, executed as a block within the lexical context
of the current Perl program. This form is typically used to delay
parsing and subsequent execution of the text of EXPR until run time.
Note that the value is parsed every time the "eval" executes.
The other form is called "block eval". It is less general than
string eval, but the code within the BLOCK is parsed only once (at
the same time the code surrounding the "eval" itself was parsed) and
executed within the context of the current Perl program. This form
is typically used to trap exceptions more efficiently than the
first, while also providing the benefit of checking the code within
BLOCK at compile time. BLOCK is parsed and compiled just once.
Since errors are trapped, it often is used to check if a given
feature is available.
In both forms, the value returned is the value of the last
expression evaluated inside the mini-program; a return statement may
also be used, just as with subroutines. The expression providing
the return value is evaluated in void, scalar, or list context,
depending on the context of the "eval" itself. See "wantarray" for
more on how the evaluation context can be determined.
If there is a syntax error or runtime error, or a "die" statement is
executed, "eval" returns "undef" in scalar context, or an empty list
in list context, and $@ is set to the error message. (Prior to
5.16, a bug caused "undef" to be returned in list context for syntax
errors, but not for runtime errors.) If there was no error, $@ is
set to the empty string. A control flow operator like "last" or
"goto" can bypass the setting of $@. Beware that using "eval"
neither silences Perl from printing warnings to STDERR, nor does it
stuff the text of warning messages into $@. To do either of those,
you have to use the $SIG{__WARN__} facility, or turn off warnings
inside the BLOCK or EXPR using "no warnings 'all'". See "warn",
perlvar, and warnings.
Note that, because "eval" traps otherwise-fatal errors, it is useful
for determining whether a particular feature (such as "socket" or
"symlink") is implemented. It is also Perl's exception-trapping
mechanism, where the "die" operator is used to raise exceptions.
Before Perl 5.14, the assignment to $@ occurred before restoration
of localized variables, which means that for your code to run on
older versions, a temporary is required if you want to mask some,
but not all errors:
# alter $@ on nefarious repugnancy only
{
my $e;
{
local $@; # protect existing $@
eval { test_repugnancy() };
# $@ =~ /nefarious/ and die $@; # Perl 5.14 and higher only
$@ =~ /nefarious/ and $e = $@;
}
die $e if defined $e
}
There are some different considerations for each form:
String eval
Since the return value of EXPR is executed as a block within the
lexical context of the current Perl program, any outer lexical
variables are visible to it, and any package variable settings
or subroutine and format definitions remain afterwards.
Note that when "BEGIN {}" blocks are embedded inside of an eval
block the contents of the block will be executed immediately and
before the rest of the eval code is executed. You can disable
this entirely by
local ${^MAX_NESTED_EVAL_BEGIN_BLOCKS} = 0;
eval $string;
which will cause any embedded "BEGIN" blocks in $string to throw
an exception.
Under the "unicode_eval" feature
If this feature is enabled (which is the default under a
"use 5.16" or higher declaration), Perl assumes that EXPR is
a character string. Any "use utf8" or "no utf8"
declarations within the string thus have no effect. Source
filters are forbidden as well. ("unicode_strings", however,
can appear within the string.)
See also the "evalbytes" operator, which works properly with
source filters.
Outside the "unicode_eval" feature
In this case, the behavior is problematic and is not so
easily described. Here are two bugs that cannot easily be
fixed without breaking existing programs:
• Perl's internal storage of EXPR affects the behavior of
the executed code. For example:
my $v = eval "use utf8; '$expr'";
If $expr is "\xc4\x80" (U+0100 in UTF-8), then the value
stored in $v will depend on whether Perl stores $expr
"upgraded" (cf. utf8) or not:
• If upgraded, $v will be "\xc4\x80" (i.e., the "use
utf8" has no effect.)
• If non-upgraded, $v will be "\x{100}".
This is undesirable since being upgraded or not should
not affect a string's behavior.
• Source filters activated within "eval" leak out into
whichever file scope is currently being compiled. To
give an example with the CPAN module Semi::Semicolons:
BEGIN { eval "use Semi::Semicolons; # not filtered" }
# filtered here!
"evalbytes" fixes that to work the way one would expect:
use feature "evalbytes";
BEGIN { evalbytes "use Semi::Semicolons; # filtered" }
# not filtered
Problems can arise if the string expands a scalar containing a
floating point number. That scalar can expand to letters, such
as "NaN" or "Infinity"; or, within the scope of a "use locale",
the decimal point character may be something other than a dot
(such as a comma). None of these are likely to parse as you are
likely expecting.
You should be especially careful to remember what's being looked
at when:
eval $x; # CASE 1
eval "$x"; # CASE 2
eval '$x'; # CASE 3
eval { $x }; # CASE 4
eval "\$$x++"; # CASE 5
$$x++; # CASE 6
Cases 1 and 2 above behave identically: they run the code
contained in the variable $x. (Although case 2 has misleading
double quotes making the reader wonder what else might be
happening (nothing is).) Cases 3 and 4 likewise behave in the
same way: they run the code '$x', which does nothing but return
the value of $x. (Case 4 is preferred for purely visual
reasons, but it also has the advantage of compiling at compile-
time instead of at run-time.) Case 5 is a place where normally
you would like to use double quotes, except that in this
particular situation, you can just use symbolic references
instead, as in case 6.
An "eval ''" executed within a subroutine defined in the "DB"
package doesn't see the usual surrounding lexical scope, but
rather the scope of the first non-DB piece of code that called
it. You don't normally need to worry about this unless you are
writing a Perl debugger.
The final semicolon, if any, may be omitted from the value of
EXPR.
Block eval
If the code to be executed doesn't vary, you may use the eval-
BLOCK form to trap run-time errors without incurring the penalty
of recompiling each time. The error, if any, is still returned
in $@. Examples:
# make divide-by-zero nonfatal
eval { $answer = $x / $y; }; warn $@ if $@;
# same thing, but less efficient
eval '$answer = $x / $y'; warn $@ if $@;
# a compile-time error
eval { $answer = }; # WRONG
# a run-time error
eval '$answer ='; # sets $@
If you want to trap errors when loading an XS module, some
problems with the binary interface (such as Perl version skew)
may be fatal even with "eval" unless $ENV{PERL_DL_NONLAZY} is
set. See perlrun.
Using the "eval {}" form as an exception trap in libraries does
have some issues. Due to the current arguably broken state of
"__DIE__" hooks, you may wish not to trigger any "__DIE__" hooks
that user code may have installed. You can use the "local
$SIG{__DIE__}" construct for this purpose, as this example
shows:
# a private exception trap for divide-by-zero
eval { local $SIG{'__DIE__'}; $answer = $x / $y; };
warn $@ if $@;
This is especially significant, given that "__DIE__" hooks can
call "die" again, which has the effect of changing their error
messages:
# __DIE__ hooks may modify error messages
{
local $SIG{'__DIE__'} =
sub { (my $x = $_[0]) =~ s/foo/bar/g; die $x };
eval { die "foo lives here" };
print $@ if $@; # prints "bar lives here"
}
Because this promotes action at a distance, this
counterintuitive behavior may be fixed in a future release.
"eval BLOCK" does not count as a loop, so the loop control
statements "next", "last", or "redo" cannot be used to leave or
restart the block.
The final semicolon, if any, may be omitted from within the
BLOCK.
evalbytes EXPR
evalbytes
This function is similar to a string eval, except it always parses
its argument (or $_ if EXPR is omitted) as a byte string. If the
string contains any code points above 255, then it cannot be a byte
string, and the "evalbytes" will fail with the error stored in $@.
"use utf8" and "no utf8" within the string have their usual effect.
Source filters activated within the evaluated code apply to the code
itself.
"evalbytes" is available starting in Perl v5.16. To access it, you
must say "CORE::evalbytes", but you can omit the "CORE::" if the
"evalbytes" feature is enabled. This is enabled automatically with
a "use v5.16" (or higher) declaration in the current scope.
exec LIST
exec PROGRAM LIST
The "exec" function executes a system command and never returns; use
"system" instead of "exec" if you want it to return. It fails and
returns false only if the command does not exist and it is executed
directly instead of via your system's command shell (see below).
Since it's a common mistake to use "exec" instead of "system", Perl
warns you if "exec" is called in void context and if there is a
following statement that isn't "die", "warn", or "exit" (if warnings
are enabled--but you always do that, right?). If you really want to
follow an "exec" with some other statement, you can use one of these
styles to avoid the warning:
exec ('foo') or print STDERR "couldn't exec foo: $!";
{ exec ('foo') }; print STDERR "couldn't exec foo: $!";
If there is more than one argument in LIST, this calls execvp(3)
with the arguments in LIST. If there is only one element in LIST,
the argument is checked for shell metacharacters, and if there are
any, the entire argument is passed to the system's command shell for
parsing (this is "/bin/sh -c" on Unix platforms, but varies on other
platforms). If there are no shell metacharacters in the argument,
it is split into words and passed directly to "execvp", which is
more efficient. Examples:
exec '/bin/echo', 'Your arguments are: ', @ARGV;
exec "sort $outfile | uniq";
If you don't really want to execute the first argument, but want to
lie to the program you are executing about its own name, you can
specify the program you actually want to run as an "indirect object"
(without a comma) in front of the LIST, as in "exec PROGRAM LIST".
(This always forces interpretation of the LIST as a multivalued
list, even if there is only a single scalar in the list.) Example:
my $shell = '/bin/csh';
exec $shell '-sh'; # pretend it's a login shell
or, more directly,
exec {'/bin/csh'} '-sh'; # pretend it's a login shell
When the arguments get executed via the system shell, results are
subject to its quirks and capabilities. See "`STRING`" in perlop
for details.
Using an indirect object with "exec" or "system" is also more
secure. This usage (which also works fine with "system") forces
interpretation of the arguments as a multivalued list, even if the
list had just one argument. That way you're safe from the shell
expanding wildcards or splitting up words with whitespace in them.
my @args = ( "echo surprise" );
exec @args; # subject to shell escapes
# if @args == 1
exec { $args[0] } @args; # safe even with one-arg list
The first version, the one without the indirect object, ran the echo
program, passing it "surprise" an argument. The second version
didn't; it tried to run a program named "echo surprise", didn't find
it, and set $? to a non-zero value indicating failure.
On Windows, only the "exec PROGRAM LIST" indirect object syntax will
reliably avoid using the shell; "exec LIST", even with more than one
element, will fall back to the shell if the first spawn fails.
Perl attempts to flush all files opened for output before the exec,
but this may not be supported on some platforms (see perlport). To
be safe, you may need to set $| ($AUTOFLUSH in English) or call the
"autoflush" method of "IO::Handle" on any open handles to avoid lost
output.
Note that "exec" will not call your "END" blocks, nor will it invoke
"DESTROY" methods on your objects.
Portability issues: "exec" in perlport.
exists EXPR
Given an expression that specifies an element of a hash, returns
true if the specified element in the hash has ever been initialized,
even if the corresponding value is undefined.
print "Exists\n" if exists $hash{$key};
print "Defined\n" if defined $hash{$key};
print "True\n" if $hash{$key};
exists may also be called on array elements, but its behavior is
much less obvious and is strongly tied to the use of "delete" on
arrays.
WARNING: Calling "exists" on array values is strongly discouraged.
The notion of deleting or checking the existence of Perl array
elements is not conceptually coherent, and can lead to surprising
behavior.
print "Exists\n" if exists $array[$index];
print "Defined\n" if defined $array[$index];
print "True\n" if $array[$index];
A hash or array element can be true only if it's defined and defined
only if it exists, but the reverse doesn't necessarily hold true.
Given an expression that specifies the name of a subroutine, returns
true if the specified subroutine has ever been declared, even if it
is undefined. Mentioning a subroutine name for exists or defined
does not count as declaring it. Note that a subroutine that does
not exist may still be callable: its package may have an "AUTOLOAD"
method that makes it spring into existence the first time that it is
called; see perlsub.
print "Exists\n" if exists &subroutine;
print "Defined\n" if defined &subroutine;
Note that the EXPR can be arbitrarily complicated as long as the
final operation is a hash or array key lookup or subroutine name:
if (exists $ref->{A}->{B}->{$key}) { }
if (exists $hash{A}{B}{$key}) { }
if (exists $ref->{A}->{B}->[$ix]) { }
if (exists $hash{A}{B}[$ix]) { }
if (exists &{$ref->{A}{B}{$key}}) { }
Although the most deeply nested array or hash element will not
spring into existence just because its existence was tested, any
intervening ones will. Thus "$ref->{"A"}" and "$ref->{"A"}->{"B"}"
will spring into existence due to the existence test for the $key
element above. This happens anywhere the arrow operator is used,
including even here:
undef $ref;
if (exists $ref->{"Some key"}) { }
print $ref; # prints HASH(0x80d3d5c)
Use of a subroutine call, rather than a subroutine name, as an
argument to "exists" is an error.
exists ⊂ # OK
exists &sub(); # Error
exit EXPR
exit
Evaluates EXPR and exits immediately with that value. Example:
my $ans = <STDIN>;
exit 0 if $ans =~ /^[Xx]/;
See also "die". If EXPR is omitted, exits with 0 status. The only
universally recognized values for EXPR are 0 for success and 1 for
error; other values are subject to interpretation depending on the
environment in which the Perl program is running. For example,
exiting 69 (EX_UNAVAILABLE) from a sendmail incoming-mail filter
will cause the mailer to return the item undelivered, but that's not
true everywhere.
Don't use "exit" to abort a subroutine if there's any chance that
someone might want to trap whatever error happened. Use "die"
instead, which can be trapped by an "eval".
The "exit" function does not always exit immediately. It calls any
defined "END" routines first, but these "END" routines may not
themselves abort the exit. Likewise any object destructors that
need to be called are called before the real exit. "END" routines
and destructors can change the exit status by modifying $?. If this
is a problem, you can call POSIX::_exit($status) to avoid "END" and
destructor processing. See perlmod for details.
Portability issues: "exit" in perlport.
exp EXPR
exp Returns e (the natural logarithm base) to the power of EXPR. If
EXPR is omitted, gives exp($_).
fc EXPR
fc Returns the casefolded version of EXPR. This is the internal
function implementing the "\F" escape in double-quoted strings.
Casefolding is the process of mapping strings to a form where case
differences are erased; comparing two strings in their casefolded
form is effectively a way of asking if two strings are equal,
regardless of case.
Roughly, if you ever found yourself writing this
lc($this) eq lc($that) # Wrong!
# or
uc($this) eq uc($that) # Also wrong!
# or
$this =~ /^\Q$that\E\z/i # Right!
Now you can write
fc($this) eq fc($that)
And get the correct results.
Perl only implements the full form of casefolding, but you can
access the simple folds using "casefold()" in Unicode::UCD and
"prop_invmap()" in Unicode::UCD. For further information on
casefolding, refer to the Unicode Standard, specifically sections
3.13 "Default Case Operations", 4.2 "Case-Normative", and 5.18 "Case
Mappings", available at <https://www.unicode.org/versions/latest/>,
as well as the Case Charts available at
<https://www.unicode.org/charts/case/>.
If EXPR is omitted, uses $_.
This function behaves the same way under various pragmas, such as
within "use feature 'unicode_strings", as "lc" does, with the single
exception of "fc" of LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S (U+1E9E) within
the scope of "use locale". The foldcase of this character would
normally be "ss", but as explained in the "lc" section, case changes
that cross the 255/256 boundary are problematic under locales, and
are hence prohibited. Therefore, this function under locale returns
instead the string "\x{17F}\x{17F}", which is the LATIN SMALL LETTER
LONG S. Since that character itself folds to "s", the string of two
of them together should be equivalent to a single U+1E9E when
foldcased.
While the Unicode Standard defines two additional forms of
casefolding, one for Turkic languages and one that never maps one
character into multiple characters, these are not provided by the
Perl core. However, the CPAN module "Unicode::Casing" may be used
to provide an implementation.
"fc" is available only if the "fc" feature is enabled or if it is
prefixed with "CORE::". The "fc" feature is enabled automatically
with a "use v5.16" (or higher) declaration in the current scope.
fcntl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR
Implements the fcntl(2) function. You'll probably have to say
use Fcntl;
first to get the correct constant definitions. Argument processing
and value returned work just like "ioctl" below. For example:
use Fcntl;
my $flags = fcntl($filehandle, F_GETFL, 0)
or die "Can't fcntl F_GETFL: $!";
You don't have to check for "defined" on the return from "fcntl".
Like "ioctl", it maps a 0 return from the system call into "0 but
true" in Perl. This string is true in boolean context and 0 in
numeric context. It is also exempt from the normal "Argument "..."
isn't numeric" warnings on improper numeric conversions.
Note that "fcntl" raises an exception if used on a machine that
doesn't implement fcntl(2). See the Fcntl module or your fcntl(2)
manpage to learn what functions are available on your system.
Here's an example of setting a filehandle named $REMOTE to be non-
blocking at the system level. You'll have to negotiate $| on your
own, though.
use Fcntl qw(F_GETFL F_SETFL O_NONBLOCK);
my $flags = fcntl($REMOTE, F_GETFL, 0)
or die "Can't get flags for the socket: $!\n";
fcntl($REMOTE, F_SETFL, $flags | O_NONBLOCK)
or die "Can't set flags for the socket: $!\n";
Portability issues: "fcntl" in perlport.
__FILE__
A special token that returns the name of the file in which it
occurs. It can be altered by the mechanism described at "Plain Old
Comments (Not!)" in perlsyn.
field VARNAME
Declares a new field variable within the current class. Methods and
"ADJUST" blocks of the class will have access to this variable as if
it was a lexical in scope at that point.
fileno FILEHANDLE
fileno DIRHANDLE
Returns the file descriptor for a filehandle or directory handle, or
undefined if the filehandle is not open. If there is no real file
descriptor at the OS level, as can happen with filehandles connected
to memory objects via "open" with a reference for the third
argument, -1 is returned.
This is mainly useful for constructing bitmaps for "select" and low-
level POSIX tty-handling operations. If FILEHANDLE is an
expression, the value is taken as an indirect filehandle, generally
its name.
You can use this to find out whether two handles refer to the same
underlying descriptor:
if (fileno($this) != -1 && fileno($this) == fileno($that)) {
print "\$this and \$that are dups\n";
} elsif (fileno($this) != -1 && fileno($that) != -1) {
print "\$this and \$that have different " .
"underlying file descriptors\n";
} else {
print "At least one of \$this and \$that does " .
"not have a real file descriptor\n";
}
The behavior of "fileno" on a directory handle depends on the
operating system. On a system with dirfd(3) or similar, "fileno" on
a directory handle returns the underlying file descriptor associated
with the handle; on systems with no such support, it returns the
undefined value, and sets $! (errno).
flock FILEHANDLE,OPERATION
Calls flock(2), or an emulation of it, on FILEHANDLE. Returns true
for success, false on failure. Produces a fatal error if used on a
machine that doesn't implement flock(2), fcntl(2) locking, or
lockf(3). "flock" is Perl's portable file-locking interface,
although it locks entire files only, not records.
Two potentially non-obvious but traditional "flock" semantics are
that it waits indefinitely until the lock is granted, and that its
locks are merely advisory. Such discretionary locks are more
flexible, but offer fewer guarantees. This means that programs that
do not also use "flock" may modify files locked with "flock". See
perlport, your port's specific documentation, and your system-
specific local manpages for details. It's best to assume
traditional behavior if you're writing portable programs. (But if
you're not, you should as always feel perfectly free to write for
your own system's idiosyncrasies (sometimes called "features").
Slavish adherence to portability concerns shouldn't get in the way
of your getting your job done.)
OPERATION is one of LOCK_SH, LOCK_EX, or LOCK_UN, possibly combined
with LOCK_NB. These constants are traditionally valued 1, 2, 8 and
4, but you can use the symbolic names if you import them from the
Fcntl module, either individually, or as a group using the ":flock"
tag. LOCK_SH requests a shared lock, LOCK_EX requests an exclusive
lock, and LOCK_UN releases a previously requested lock. If LOCK_NB
is bitwise-or'ed with LOCK_SH or LOCK_EX, then "flock" returns
immediately rather than blocking waiting for the lock; check the
return status to see if you got it.
To avoid the possibility of miscoordination, Perl now flushes
FILEHANDLE before locking or unlocking it.
Note that the emulation built with lockf(3) doesn't provide shared
locks, and it requires that FILEHANDLE be open with write intent.
These are the semantics that lockf(3) implements. Most if not all
systems implement lockf(3) in terms of fcntl(2) locking, though, so
the differing semantics shouldn't bite too many people.
Note that the fcntl(2) emulation of flock(3) requires that
FILEHANDLE be open with read intent to use LOCK_SH and requires that
it be open with write intent to use LOCK_EX.
Note also that some versions of "flock" cannot lock things over the
network; you would need to use the more system-specific "fcntl" for
that. If you like you can force Perl to ignore your system's
flock(2) function, and so provide its own fcntl(2)-based emulation,
by passing the switch "-Ud_flock" to the Configure program when you
configure and build a new Perl.
Here's a mailbox appender for BSD systems.
# import LOCK_* and SEEK_END constants
use Fcntl qw(:flock SEEK_END);
sub lock {
my ($fh) = @_;
flock($fh, LOCK_EX) or die "Cannot lock mailbox - $!\n";
# and, in case we're running on a very old UNIX
# variant without the modern O_APPEND semantics...
seek($fh, 0, SEEK_END) or die "Cannot seek - $!\n";
}
sub unlock {
my ($fh) = @_;
flock($fh, LOCK_UN) or die "Cannot unlock mailbox - $!\n";
}
open(my $mbox, ">>", "/usr/spool/mail/$ENV{'USER'}")
or die "Can't open mailbox: $!";
lock($mbox);
print $mbox $msg,"\n\n";
unlock($mbox);
On systems that support a real flock(2), locks are inherited across
"fork" calls, whereas those that must resort to the more capricious
fcntl(2) function lose their locks, making it seriously harder to
write servers.
See also DB_File for other "flock" examples.
Portability issues: "flock" in perlport.
fork
Does a fork(2) system call to create a new process running the same
program at the same point. It returns the child pid to the parent
process, 0 to the child process, or "undef" if the fork is
unsuccessful. File descriptors (and sometimes locks on those
descriptors) are shared, while everything else is copied. On most
systems supporting fork(2), great care has gone into making it
extremely efficient (for example, using copy-on-write technology on
data pages), making it the dominant paradigm for multitasking over
the last few decades.
Perl attempts to flush all files opened for output before forking
the child process, but this may not be supported on some platforms
(see perlport). To be safe, you may need to set $| ($AUTOFLUSH in
English) or call the "autoflush" method of "IO::Handle" on any open
handles to avoid duplicate output.
If you "fork" without ever waiting on your children, you will
accumulate zombies. On some systems, you can avoid this by setting
$SIG{CHLD} to "IGNORE". See also perlipc for more examples of
forking and reaping moribund children.
Note that if your forked child inherits system file descriptors like
STDIN and STDOUT that are actually connected by a pipe or socket,
even if you exit, then the remote server (such as, say, a CGI script
or a backgrounded job launched from a remote shell) won't think
you're done. You should reopen those to /dev/null if it's any
issue.
On some platforms such as Windows, where the fork(2) system call is
not available, Perl can be built to emulate "fork" in the Perl
interpreter. The emulation is designed, at the level of the Perl
program, to be as compatible as possible with the "Unix" fork(2).
However it has limitations that have to be considered in code
intended to be portable. See perlfork for more details.
Portability issues: "fork" in perlport.
format
Declare a picture format for use by the "write" function. For
example:
format Something =
Test: @<<<<<<<< @||||| @>>>>>
$str, $%, '$' . int($num)
.
$str = "widget";
$num = $cost/$quantity;
$~ = 'Something';
write;
See perlform for many details and examples.
formline PICTURE,LIST
This is an internal function used by "format"s, though you may call
it, too. It formats (see perlform) a list of values according to
the contents of PICTURE, placing the output into the format output
accumulator, $^A (or $ACCUMULATOR in English). Eventually, when a
"write" is done, the contents of $^A are written to some filehandle.
You could also read $^A and then set $^A back to "". Note that a
format typically does one "formline" per line of form, but the
"formline" function itself doesn't care how many newlines are
embedded in the PICTURE. This means that the "~" and "~~" tokens
treat the entire PICTURE as a single line. You may therefore need
to use multiple formlines to implement a single record format, just
like the "format" compiler.
Be careful if you put double quotes around the picture, because an
"@" character may be taken to mean the beginning of an array name.
"formline" always returns true. See perlform for other examples.
If you are trying to use this instead of "write" to capture the
output, you may find it easier to open a filehandle to a scalar
("open my $fh, ">", \$output") and write to that instead.
getc FILEHANDLE
getc
Returns the next character from the input file attached to
FILEHANDLE, or the undefined value at end of file or if there was an
error (in the latter case $! is set). If FILEHANDLE is omitted,
reads from STDIN. This is not particularly efficient. However, it
cannot be used by itself to fetch single characters without waiting
for the user to hit enter. For that, try something more like:
if ($BSD_STYLE) {
system "stty cbreak </dev/tty >/dev/tty 2>&1";
}
else {
system "stty", '-icanon', 'eol', "\001";
}
my $key = getc(STDIN);
if ($BSD_STYLE) {
system "stty -cbreak </dev/tty >/dev/tty 2>&1";
}
else {
system 'stty', 'icanon', 'eol', '^@'; # ASCII NUL
}
print "\n";
Determination of whether $BSD_STYLE should be set is left as an
exercise to the reader.
The "POSIX::getattr" function can do this more portably on systems
purporting POSIX compliance. See also the "Term::ReadKey" module on
CPAN.
getlogin
This implements the C library function of the same name, which on
most systems returns the current login from /etc/utmp, if any. If
it returns the empty string, use "getpwuid".
my $login = getlogin || getpwuid($<) || "Kilroy";
Do not consider "getlogin" for authentication: it is not as secure
as "getpwuid".
Portability issues: "getlogin" in perlport.
getpeername SOCKET
Returns the packed sockaddr address of the other end of the SOCKET
connection.
use Socket;
my $hersockaddr = getpeername($sock);
my ($port, $iaddr) = sockaddr_in($hersockaddr);
my $herhostname = gethostbyaddr($iaddr, AF_INET);
my $herstraddr = inet_ntoa($iaddr);
getpgrp PID
Returns the current process group for the specified PID. Use a PID
of 0 to get the current process group for the current process. Will
raise an exception if used on a machine that doesn't implement
getpgrp(2). If PID is omitted, returns the process group of the
current process.
Some very old machines may not support "PID != 0" and will throw an
exception if "PID != 0".
Portability issues: "getpgrp" in perlport.
getppid
Returns the process id of the parent process.
Note for Linux users: Between v5.8.1 and v5.16.0 Perl would work
around non-POSIX thread semantics the minority of Linux systems (and
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD systems) that used LinuxThreads, this emulation
has since been removed. See the documentation for $$ for details.
Portability issues: "getppid" in perlport.
getpriority WHICH,WHO
Returns the current priority for a process, a process group, or a
user. (See getpriority(2).) Will raise a fatal exception if used
on a machine that doesn't implement getpriority(2).
"WHICH" can be any of "PRIO_PROCESS", "PRIO_PGRP" or "PRIO_USER"
imported from "RESOURCE CONSTANTS" in POSIX.
Portability issues: "getpriority" in perlport.
getpwnam NAME
getgrnam NAME
gethostbyname NAME
getnetbyname NAME
getprotobyname NAME
getpwuid UID
getgrgid GID
getservbyname NAME,PROTO
gethostbyaddr ADDR,ADDRTYPE
getnetbyaddr ADDR,ADDRTYPE
getprotobynumber NUMBER
getservbyport PORT,PROTO
getpwent
getgrent
gethostent
getnetent
getprotoent
getservent
setpwent
setgrent
sethostent STAYOPEN
setnetent STAYOPEN
setprotoent STAYOPEN
setservent STAYOPEN
endpwent
endgrent
endhostent
endnetent
endprotoent
endservent
These routines are the same as their counterparts in the system C
library. In list context, the return values from the various get
routines are as follows:
# 0 1 2 3 4
my ( $name, $passwd, $gid, $members ) = getgr*
my ( $name, $aliases, $addrtype, $net ) = getnet*
my ( $name, $aliases, $port, $proto ) = getserv*
my ( $name, $aliases, $proto ) = getproto*
my ( $name, $aliases, $addrtype, $length, @addrs ) = gethost*
my ( $name, $passwd, $uid, $gid, $quota,
$comment, $gcos, $dir, $shell, $expire ) = getpw*
# 5 6 7 8 9
(If the entry doesn't exist, the return value is a single
meaningless true value.)
The exact meaning of the $gcos field varies but it usually contains
the real name of the user (as opposed to the login name) and other
information pertaining to the user. Beware, however, that in many
system users are able to change this information and therefore it
cannot be trusted and therefore the $gcos is tainted (see perlsec).
The $passwd and $shell, user's encrypted password and login shell,
are also tainted, for the same reason.
In scalar context, you get the name, unless the function was a
lookup by name, in which case you get the other thing, whatever it
is. (If the entry doesn't exist you get the undefined value.) For
example:
my $uid = getpwnam($name);
my $name = getpwuid($num);
my $name = getpwent();
my $gid = getgrnam($name);
my $name = getgrgid($num);
my $name = getgrent();
# etc.
In getpw*() the fields $quota, $comment, and $expire are special in
that they are unsupported on many systems. If the $quota is
unsupported, it is an empty scalar. If it is supported, it usually
encodes the disk quota. If the $comment field is unsupported, it is
an empty scalar. If it is supported it usually encodes some
administrative comment about the user. In some systems the $quota
field may be $change or $age, fields that have to do with password
aging. In some systems the $comment field may be $class. The
$expire field, if present, encodes the expiration period of the
account or the password. For the availability and the exact meaning
of these fields in your system, please consult getpwnam(3) and your
system's pwd.h file. You can also find out from within Perl what
your $quota and $comment fields mean and whether you have the
$expire field by using the "Config" module and the values
"d_pwquota", "d_pwage", "d_pwchange", "d_pwcomment", and
"d_pwexpire". Shadow password files are supported only if your
vendor has implemented them in the intuitive fashion that calling
the regular C library routines gets the shadow versions if you're
running under privilege or if there exists the shadow(3) functions
as found in System V (this includes Solaris and Linux). Those
systems that implement a proprietary shadow password facility are
unlikely to be supported.
The $members value returned by getgr*() is a space-separated list of
the login names of the members of the group.
For the gethost*() functions, if the "h_errno" variable is supported
in C, it will be returned to you via $? if the function call fails.
The @addrs value returned by a successful call is a list of raw
addresses returned by the corresponding library call. In the
Internet domain, each address is four bytes long; you can unpack it
by saying something like:
my ($w,$x,$y,$z) = unpack('W4',$addr[0]);
The Socket library makes this slightly easier:
use Socket;
my $iaddr = inet_aton("127.1"); # or whatever address
my $name = gethostbyaddr($iaddr, AF_INET);
# or going the other way
my $straddr = inet_ntoa($iaddr);
In the opposite way, to resolve a hostname to the IP address you can
write this:
use Socket;
my $packed_ip = gethostbyname("www.perl.org");
my $ip_address;
if (defined $packed_ip) {
$ip_address = inet_ntoa($packed_ip);
}
Make sure "gethostbyname" is called in SCALAR context and that its
return value is checked for definedness.
The "getprotobynumber" function, even though it only takes one
argument, has the precedence of a list operator, so beware:
getprotobynumber $number eq 'icmp' # WRONG
getprotobynumber($number eq 'icmp') # actually means this
getprotobynumber($number) eq 'icmp' # better this way
If you get tired of remembering which element of the return list
contains which return value, by-name interfaces are provided in
standard modules: "File::stat", "Net::hostent", "Net::netent",
"Net::protoent", "Net::servent", "Time::gmtime", "Time::localtime",
and "User::grent". These override the normal built-ins, supplying
versions that return objects with the appropriate names for each
field. For example:
use File::stat;
use User::pwent;
my $is_theirs = (stat($filename)->uid == getpwnam($whoever)->uid);
Even though it looks as though they're the same method calls (uid),
they aren't, because a "File::stat" object is different from a
"User::pwent" object.
Many of these functions are not safe in a multi-threaded environment
where more than one thread can be using them. In particular,
functions like getpwent() iterate per-process and not per-thread, so
if two threads are simultaneously iterating, neither will get all
the records.
Some systems have thread-safe versions of some of the functions,
such as getpwnam_r() instead of getpwnam(). There, Perl
automatically and invisibly substitutes the thread-safe version,
without notice. This means that code that safely runs on some
systems can fail on others that lack the thread-safe versions.
Portability issues: "getpwnam" in perlport to "endservent" in
perlport.
getsockname SOCKET
Returns the packed sockaddr address of this end of the SOCKET
connection, in case you don't know the address because you have
several different IPs that the connection might have come in on.
use Socket;
my $mysockaddr = getsockname($sock);
my ($port, $myaddr) = sockaddr_in($mysockaddr);
printf "Connect to %s [%s]\n",
scalar gethostbyaddr($myaddr, AF_INET),
inet_ntoa($myaddr);
getsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME
Queries the option named OPTNAME associated with SOCKET at a given
LEVEL. Options may exist at multiple protocol levels depending on
the socket type, but at least the uppermost socket level SOL_SOCKET
(defined in the "Socket" module) will exist. To query options at
another level the protocol number of the appropriate protocol
controlling the option should be supplied. For example, to indicate
that an option is to be interpreted by the TCP protocol, LEVEL
should be set to the protocol number of TCP, which you can get using
"getprotobyname".
The function returns a packed string representing the requested
socket option, or "undef" on error, with the reason for the error
placed in $!. Just what is in the packed string depends on LEVEL
and OPTNAME; consult getsockopt(2) for details. A common case is
that the option is an integer, in which case the result is a packed
integer, which you can decode using "unpack" with the "i" (or "I")
format.
Here's an example to test whether Nagle's algorithm is enabled on a
socket:
use Socket qw(:all);
defined(my $tcp = getprotobyname("tcp"))
or die "Could not determine the protocol number for tcp";
# my $tcp = IPPROTO_TCP; # Alternative
my $packed = getsockopt($socket, $tcp, TCP_NODELAY)
or die "getsockopt TCP_NODELAY: $!";
my $nodelay = unpack("I", $packed);
print "Nagle's algorithm is turned ",
$nodelay ? "off\n" : "on\n";
Portability issues: "getsockopt" in perlport.
glob EXPR
glob
In list context, returns a (possibly empty) list of filename
expansions on the value of EXPR such as the Unix shell Bash would
do. In scalar context, glob iterates through such filename
expansions, returning "undef" when the list is exhausted. If EXPR is
omitted, $_ is used.
# List context
my @txt_files = glob("*.txt");
my @perl_files = glob("*.pl *.pm");
# Scalar context
while (my $file = glob("*.mp3")) {
# Do stuff
}
Glob also supports an alternate syntax using "<" ">" as delimiters.
While this syntax is supported, it is recommended that you use
"glob" instead as it is more readable and searchable.
my @txt_files = <"*.txt">;
If you need case insensitive file globbing that can be achieved
using the ":nocase" parameter of the "bsd_glob" module.
use File::Glob qw(:globally :nocase);
my @txt = glob("readme*"); # README readme.txt Readme.md
Note that "glob" splits its arguments on whitespace and treats each
segment as separate pattern. As such, "glob("*.c *.h")" matches all
files with a .c or .h extension. The expression "glob(".* *")"
matches all files in the current working directory. If you want to
glob filenames that might contain whitespace, you'll have to use
extra quotes around the spacey filename to protect it. For example,
to glob filenames that have an "e" followed by a space followed by
an "f", use one of:
my @spacies = <"*e f*">;
my @spacies = glob('"*e f*"');
my @spacies = glob(q("*e f*"));
If you had to get a variable through, you could do this:
my @spacies = glob("'*${var}e f*'");
my @spacies = glob(qq("*${var}e f*"));
If non-empty braces are the only wildcard characters used in the
"glob", no filenames are matched, but potentially many strings are
returned. For example, this produces nine strings, one for each
pairing of fruits and colors:
my @many = glob("{apple,tomato,cherry}={green,yellow,red}");
This operator is implemented using the standard "File::Glob"
extension. See "bsd_glob" for details, including "bsd_glob", which
does not treat whitespace as a pattern separator.
If a "glob" expression is used as the condition of a "while" or
"for" loop, then it will be implicitly assigned to $_. If either a
"glob" expression or an explicit assignment of a "glob" expression
to a scalar is used as a "while"/"for" condition, then the condition
actually tests for definedness of the expression's value, not for
its regular truth value.
Internal implemenation details:
This is the internal function implementing the "<*.c>" operator, but
you can use it directly. The "<*.c>" operator is discussed in more
detail in "I/O Operators" in perlop.
Portability issues: "glob" in perlport.
gmtime EXPR
gmtime
Works just like "localtime", but the returned values are localized
for the standard Greenwich time zone.
Note: When called in list context, $isdst, the last value returned
by gmtime, is always 0. There is no Daylight Saving Time in GMT.
Portability issues: "gmtime" in perlport.
goto LABEL
goto EXPR
goto &NAME
The "goto LABEL" form finds the statement labeled with LABEL and
resumes execution there. It can't be used to get out of a block or
subroutine given to "sort". It can be used to go almost anywhere
else within the dynamic scope, including out of subroutines, but
it's usually better to use some other construct such as "last" or
"die". The author of Perl has never felt the need to use this form
of "goto" (in Perl, that is; C is another matter). (The difference
is that C does not offer named loops combined with loop control.
Perl does, and this replaces most structured uses of "goto" in other
languages.)
The "goto EXPR" form expects to evaluate "EXPR" to a code reference
or a label name. If it evaluates to a code reference, it will be
handled like "goto &NAME", below. This is especially useful for
implementing tail recursion via "goto __SUB__".
If the expression evaluates to a label name, its scope will be
resolved dynamically. This allows for computed "goto"s per FORTRAN,
but isn't necessarily recommended if you're optimizing for
maintainability:
goto ("FOO", "BAR", "GLARCH")[$i];
As shown in this example, "goto EXPR" is exempt from the "looks like
a function" rule. A pair of parentheses following it does not
(necessarily) delimit its argument. "goto("NE")."XT"" is equivalent
to "goto NEXT". Also, unlike most named operators, this has the
same precedence as assignment.
Use of "goto LABEL" or "goto EXPR" to jump into a construct is
deprecated and will issue a warning; it will become a fatal error in
Perl 5.42. While still available, it may not be used to go into any
construct that requires initialization, such as a subroutine, a
"foreach" loop, or a "given" block. In general, it may not be used
to jump into the parameter of a binary or list operator, but it may
be used to jump into the first parameter of a binary operator. (The
"=" assignment operator's "first" operand is its right-hand
operand.) It also can't be used to go into a construct that is
optimized away.
The "goto &NAME" form is quite different from the other forms of
"goto". In fact, it isn't a goto in the normal sense at all, and
doesn't have the stigma associated with other gotos. Instead, it
exits the current subroutine (losing any changes set by "local") and
immediately calls in its place the named subroutine using the
current value of @_. This is used by "AUTOLOAD" subroutines that
wish to load another subroutine and then pretend that the other
subroutine had been called in the first place (except that any
modifications to @_ in the current subroutine are propagated to the
other subroutine.) After the "goto", not even "caller" will be able
to tell that this routine was called first.
NAME needn't be the name of a subroutine; it can be a scalar
variable containing a code reference or a block that evaluates to a
code reference.
grep BLOCK LIST
grep EXPR,LIST
This is similar in spirit to, but not the same as, grep(1) and its
relatives. In particular, it is not limited to using regular
expressions.
Evaluates the BLOCK or EXPR for each element of LIST (locally
setting $_ to each element) and returns the list value consisting of
those elements for which the expression evaluated to true. In
scalar context, returns the number of times the expression was true.
my @foo = grep(!/^#/, @bar); # weed out comments
or equivalently,
my @foo = grep {!/^#/} @bar; # weed out comments
Note that $_ is an alias to the list value, so it can be used to
modify the elements of the LIST. While this is useful and
supported, it can cause bizarre results if the elements of LIST are
not variables. Similarly, grep returns aliases into the original
list, much as a for loop's index variable aliases the list elements.
That is, modifying an element of a list returned by grep (for
example, in a "foreach", "map" or another "grep") actually modifies
the element in the original list. This is usually something to be
avoided when writing clear code.
See also "map" for a list composed of the results of the BLOCK or
EXPR.
hex EXPR
hex Interprets EXPR as a hex string and returns the corresponding
numeric value. If EXPR is omitted, uses $_.
print hex '0xAf'; # prints '175'
print hex 'aF'; # same
$valid_input =~ /\A(?:0?[xX])?(?:_?[0-9a-fA-F])*\z/
A hex string consists of hex digits and an optional "0x" or "x"
prefix. Each hex digit may be preceded by a single underscore,
which will be ignored. Any other character triggers a warning and
causes the rest of the string to be ignored (even leading
whitespace, unlike "oct"). Only integers can be represented, and
integer overflow triggers a warning.
To convert strings that might start with any of 0, "0x", or "0b",
see "oct". To present something as hex, look into "printf",
"sprintf", and "unpack".
import LIST
There is no builtin "import" function. It is just an ordinary
method (subroutine) defined (or inherited) by modules that wish to
export names to another module. The "use" function calls the
"import" method for the package used. See also "use", perlmod, and
Exporter.
index STR,SUBSTR,POSITION
index STR,SUBSTR
The index function searches for one string within another, but
without the wildcard-like behavior of a full regular-expression
pattern match. It returns the position of the first occurrence of
SUBSTR in STR at or after POSITION. If POSITION is omitted, starts
searching from the beginning of the string. POSITION before the
beginning of the string or after its end is treated as if it were
the beginning or the end, respectively. POSITION and the return
value are based at zero. If the substring is not found, "index"
returns -1.
Find characters or strings:
index("Perl is great", "P"); # Returns 0
index("Perl is great", "g"); # Returns 8
index("Perl is great", "great"); # Also returns 8
Attempting to find something not there:
index("Perl is great", "Z"); # Returns -1 (not found)
Using an offset to find the second occurrence:
index("Perl is great", "e", 5); # Returns 10
int EXPR
int Returns the integer portion of EXPR. If EXPR is omitted, uses $_.
You should not use this function for rounding: one because it
truncates towards 0, and two because machine representations of
floating-point numbers can sometimes produce counterintuitive
results. For example, int(-6.725/0.025) produces -268 rather than
the correct -269; that's because it's really more like
-268.99999999999994315658 instead. Usually, the "sprintf",
"printf", or the "POSIX::floor" and "POSIX::ceil" functions will
serve you better than will "int".
ioctl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR
Implements the ioctl(2) function. You'll probably first have to say
require "sys/ioctl.ph"; # probably in
# $Config{archlib}/sys/ioctl.ph
to get the correct function definitions. If sys/ioctl.ph doesn't
exist or doesn't have the correct definitions you'll have to roll
your own, based on your C header files such as <sys/ioctl.h>.
(There is a Perl script called h2ph that comes with the Perl kit
that may help you in this, but it's nontrivial.) SCALAR will be
read and/or written depending on the FUNCTION; a C pointer to the
string value of SCALAR will be passed as the third argument of the
actual "ioctl" call. (If SCALAR has no string value but does have a
numeric value, that value will be passed rather than a pointer to
the string value. To guarantee this to be true, add a 0 to the
scalar before using it.) The "pack" and "unpack" functions may be
needed to manipulate the values of structures used by "ioctl".
The return value of "ioctl" (and "fcntl") is as follows:
if OS returns: then Perl returns:
-1 undefined value
0 string "0 but true"
anything else that number
Thus Perl returns true on success and false on failure, yet you can
still easily determine the actual value returned by the operating
system:
my $retval = ioctl(...) || -1;
printf "System returned %d\n", $retval;
The special string "0 but true" is exempt from "Argument "..." isn't
numeric" warnings on improper numeric conversions.
Portability issues: "ioctl" in perlport.
join EXPR,LIST
Joins the separate strings of LIST into a single string with fields
separated by the value of EXPR, and returns that new string.
Example:
my $rec = join(':', $login,$passwd,$uid,$gid,$gcos,$home,$shell);
Beware that unlike "split", "join" doesn't take a pattern as its
first argument. Compare "split".
keys HASH
keys ARRAY
Called in list context, returns a list consisting of all the keys of
the named hash, or in Perl 5.12 or later only, the indices of an
array. Perl releases prior to 5.12 will produce a syntax error if
you try to use an array argument. In scalar context, returns the
number of keys or indices.
Hash entries are returned in an apparently random order. The actual
random order is specific to a given hash; the exact same series of
operations on two hashes may result in a different order for each
hash. Any insertion into the hash may change the order, as will any
deletion, with the exception that the most recent key returned by
"each" or "keys" may be deleted without changing the order. So long
as a given hash is unmodified you may rely on "keys", "values" and
"each" to repeatedly return the same order as each other. See
"Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec for details on why hash
order is randomized. Aside from the guarantees provided here the
exact details of Perl's hash algorithm and the hash traversal order
are subject to change in any release of Perl. Tied hashes may
behave differently to Perl's hashes with respect to changes in order
on insertion and deletion of items.
As a side effect, calling "keys" resets the internal iterator of the
HASH or ARRAY (see "each") before yielding the keys. In particular,
calling "keys" in void context resets the iterator with no other
overhead.
Here is yet another way to print your environment:
my @keys = keys %ENV;
my @values = values %ENV;
while (@keys) {
print pop(@keys), '=', pop(@values), "\n";
}
or how about sorted by key:
foreach my $key (sort(keys %ENV)) {
print $key, '=', $ENV{$key}, "\n";
}
The returned values are copies of the original keys in the hash, so
modifying them will not affect the original hash. Compare "values".
To sort a hash by value, you'll need to use a "sort" function.
Here's a descending numeric sort of a hash by its values:
foreach my $key (sort { $hash{$b} <=> $hash{$a} } keys %hash) {
printf "%4d %s\n", $hash{$key}, $key;
}
Used as an lvalue, "keys" allows you to increase the number of hash
buckets allocated for the given hash. This can gain you a measure
of efficiency if you know the hash is going to get big. (This is
similar to pre-extending an array by assigning a larger number to
$#array.) If you say
keys %hash = 200;
then %hash will have at least 200 buckets allocated for it--256 of
them, in fact, since it rounds up to the next power of two. These
buckets will be retained even if you do "%hash = ()", use undef
%hash if you want to free the storage while %hash is still in scope.
You can't shrink the number of buckets allocated for the hash using
"keys" in this way (but you needn't worry about doing this by
accident, as trying has no effect). "keys @array" in an lvalue
context is a syntax error.
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowed "keys" to
take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed
unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
To avoid confusing would-be users of your code who are running
earlier versions of Perl with mysterious syntax errors, put this
sort of thing at the top of your file to signal that your code will
work only on Perls of a recent vintage:
use v5.12; # so keys/values/each work on arrays
See also "each", "values", and "sort".
kill SIGNAL, LIST
kill SIGNAL
Sends a signal to a list of processes. Returns the number of
arguments that were successfully used to signal (which is not
necessarily the same as the number of processes actually killed,
e.g. where a process group is killed).
my $cnt = kill 'HUP', $child1, $child2;
kill 'KILL', @goners;
SIGNAL may be either a signal name (a string) or a signal number. A
signal name may start with a "SIG" prefix, thus "FOO" and "SIGFOO"
refer to the same signal. The string form of SIGNAL is recommended
for portability because the same signal may have different numbers
in different operating systems.
A list of signal names supported by the current platform can be
found in $Config{sig_name}, which is provided by the "Config"
module. See Config for more details.
A negative signal name is the same as a negative signal number,
killing process groups instead of processes. For example, "kill
'-KILL', $pgrp" and "kill -9, $pgrp" will send "SIGKILL" to the
entire process group specified. That means you usually want to use
positive not negative signals.
If SIGNAL is either the number 0 or the string "ZERO" (or
"SIGZERO"), no signal is sent to the process, but "kill" checks
whether it's possible to send a signal to it (that means, to be
brief, that the process is owned by the same user, or we are the
super-user). This is useful to check that a child process is still
alive (even if only as a zombie) and hasn't changed its UID. See
perlport for notes on the portability of this construct.
The behavior of kill when a PROCESS number is zero or negative
depends on the operating system. For example, on POSIX-conforming
systems, zero will signal the current process group, -1 will signal
all processes, and any other negative PROCESS number will act as a
negative signal number and kill the entire process group specified.
If both the SIGNAL and the PROCESS are negative, the results are
undefined. A warning may be produced in a future version.
See "Signals" in perlipc for more details.
On some platforms such as Windows where the fork(2) system call is
not available, Perl can be built to emulate "fork" at the
interpreter level. This emulation has limitations related to kill
that have to be considered, for code running on Windows and in code
intended to be portable.
See perlfork for more details.
If there is no LIST of processes, no signal is sent, and the return
value is 0. This form is sometimes used, however, because it causes
tainting checks to be run, if your perl support taint checks. But
see "Laundering and Detecting Tainted Data" in perlsec.
Portability issues: "kill" in perlport.
last LABEL
last EXPR
last
The "last" command is like the "break" statement in C (as used in
loops); it immediately exits the loop in question. If the LABEL is
omitted, the command refers to the innermost enclosing loop. The
"last EXPR" form, available starting in Perl 5.18.0, allows a label
name to be computed at run time, and is otherwise identical to "last
LABEL". The "continue" block, if any, is not executed:
LINE: while (<STDIN>) {
last LINE if /^$/; # exit when done with header
#...
}
"last" cannot return a value from a block that typically returns a
value, such as "eval {}", "sub {}", or "do {}". It will perform its
flow control behavior, which precludes any return value. It should
not be used to exit a "grep" or "map" operation.
Note that a block by itself is semantically identical to a loop that
executes once. Thus "last" can be used to effect an early exit out
of such a block.
See also "continue" for an illustration of how "last", "next", and
"redo" work.
Unlike most named operators, this has the same precedence as
assignment. It is also exempt from the looks-like-a-function rule,
so "last ("foo")."bar"" will cause "bar" to be part of the argument
to "last".
lc EXPR
lc Returns a lowercased version of EXPR. If EXPR is omitted, uses $_.
my $str = lc("Perl is GREAT"); # "perl is great"
What gets returned depends on several factors:
If "use bytes" is in effect:
The results follow ASCII rules. Only the characters "A-Z"
change, to "a-z" respectively.
Otherwise, if "use locale" for "LC_CTYPE" is in effect:
Respects current "LC_CTYPE" locale for code points < 256; and
uses Unicode rules for the remaining code points (this last can
only happen if the UTF8 flag is also set). See perllocale.
Starting in v5.20, Perl uses full Unicode rules if the locale is
UTF-8. Otherwise, there is a deficiency in this scheme, which
is that case changes that cross the 255/256 boundary are not
well-defined. For example, the lower case of LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER SHARP S (U+1E9E) in Unicode rules is U+00DF (on ASCII
platforms). But under "use locale" (prior to v5.20 or not a
UTF-8 locale), the lower case of U+1E9E is itself, because 0xDF
may not be LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S in the current locale, and
Perl has no way of knowing if that character even exists in the
locale, much less what code point it is. Perl returns a result
that is above 255 (almost always the input character unchanged),
for all instances (and there aren't many) where the 255/256
boundary would otherwise be crossed; and starting in v5.22, it
raises a locale warning.
Otherwise, If EXPR has the UTF8 flag set:
Unicode rules are used for the case change.
Otherwise, if "use feature 'unicode_strings'" or "use locale
':not_characters'" is in effect:
Unicode rules are used for the case change.
Otherwise:
ASCII rules are used for the case change. The lowercase of any
character outside the ASCII range is the character itself.
Note: This is the internal function implementing the "\L" escape in
double-quoted strings.
my $str = "Perl is \LGREAT\E"; # "Perl is great"
lcfirst EXPR
lcfirst
Returns the value of EXPR with the first character lowercased. This
is the internal function implementing the "\l" escape in double-
quoted strings.
If EXPR is omitted, uses $_.
This function behaves the same way under various pragmas, such as in
a locale, as "lc" does.
length EXPR
length
Returns the length in characters of the value of EXPR. If EXPR is
omitted, returns the length of $_. If EXPR is undefined, returns
"undef".
This function cannot be used on an entire array or hash to find out
how many elements these have. For that, use "scalar @array" and
scalar keys %hash, respectively.
Like all Perl character operations, "length" normally deals in
logical characters, not physical bytes. For how many bytes a string
encoded as UTF-8 would take up, use "length(Encode::encode('UTF-8',
EXPR))" (you'll have to "use Encode" first). See Encode and
perlunicode.
__LINE__
A special token that compiles to the current line number. It can be
altered by the mechanism described at "Plain Old Comments (Not!)" in
perlsyn.
link OLDFILE,NEWFILE
Creates a new filename linked to the old filename. Returns true for
success, false otherwise.
Portability issues: "link" in perlport.
listen SOCKET,QUEUESIZE
Does the same thing that the listen(2) system call does. Returns
true if it succeeded, false otherwise. See the example in "Sockets:
Client/Server Communication" in perlipc.
local EXPR
You really probably want to be using "my" instead, because "local"
isn't what most people think of as "local". See "Private Variables
via my()" in perlsub for details.
A local modifies the listed variables to be local to the enclosing
block, file, or eval. If more than one value is listed, the list
must be placed in parentheses. See "Temporary Values via local()"
in perlsub for details, including issues with tied arrays and
hashes.
Like "my", "state", and "our", "local" can operate on a variable
anywhere it appears in an expression (aside from interpolation in
strings). Unlike the other declarations, the effect of "local"
happens at runtime, and so it will apply to additional uses of the
same variable executed after the declaration, even within the same
statement. Note that this does not include uses within an expression
assigned to the variable when it is localized, because the assigned
expression is evaluated before the localization.
package main;
our $x = 2;
{
foo($x, local $x = $x + 1, $x); # foo() receives (2, 3, 3)
# $main::x is 3 within the call to foo()
}
foo($x); # foo() receives (2) and $main::x is 2
The "delete local EXPR" construct can also be used to localize the
deletion of array/hash elements to the current block. See
"Localized deletion of elements of composite types" in perlsub.
localtime EXPR
localtime
Converts a time as returned by the time function to a 9-element list
with the time analyzed for the local time zone. Typically used as
follows:
# 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) =
localtime(time);
All list elements are numeric and come straight out of the C 'struct
tm'. $sec, $min, and $hour are the seconds, minutes, and hours of
the specified time.
$mday is the day of the month and $mon the month in the range 0..11,
with 0 indicating January and 11 indicating December. This makes it
easy to get a month name from a list:
my @abbr = qw(Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec);
print "$abbr[$mon] $mday";
# $mon=9, $mday=18 gives "Oct 18"
$year contains the number of years since 1900. To get the full year
write:
$year += 1900;
To get the last two digits of the year (e.g., "01" in 2001) do:
$year = sprintf("%02d", $year % 100);
$wday is the day of the week, with 0 indicating Sunday and 3
indicating Wednesday. $yday is the day of the year, in the range
0..364 (or 0..365 in leap years.)
$isdst is true if the specified time occurs when Daylight Saving
Time is in effect, false otherwise.
If EXPR is omitted, "localtime" uses the current time (as returned
by "time").
In scalar context, "localtime" returns the ctime(3) value:
my $now_string = localtime; # e.g., "Thu Oct 13 04:54:34 1994"
This scalar value is always in English, and is not locale-dependent.
To get similar but locale-dependent date strings, try for example:
use POSIX qw(strftime);
my $now_string = strftime "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y", localtime;
# or for GMT formatted appropriately for your locale:
my $now_string = strftime "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Y", gmtime;
$now_string will be formatted according to the current LC_TIME
locale the program or thread is running in. See perllocale for how
to set up and change that locale. Note that %a and %b, the short
forms of the day of the week and the month of the year, may not
necessarily be three characters wide.
The Time::gmtime and Time::localtime modules provide a convenient,
by-name access mechanism to the "gmtime" and "localtime" functions,
respectively.
For a comprehensive date and time representation look at the
DateTime module on CPAN.
For GMT instead of local time use the "gmtime" builtin.
See also the "Time::Local" module (for converting seconds, minutes,
hours, and such back to the integer value returned by "time"), and
the POSIX module's "mktime" function.
Portability issues: "localtime" in perlport.
lock THING
This function places an advisory lock on a shared variable or
referenced object contained in THING until the lock goes out of
scope.
The value returned is the scalar itself, if the argument is a
scalar, or a reference, if the argument is a hash, array or
subroutine.
"lock" is a "weak keyword"; this means that if you've defined a
function by this name (before any calls to it), that function will
be called instead. If you are not under "use threads::shared" this
does nothing. See threads::shared.
log EXPR
log Returns the natural logarithm (base e) of EXPR. If EXPR is omitted,
returns the log of $_. To get the log of another base, use basic
algebra: The base-N log of a number is equal to the natural log of
that number divided by the natural log of N. For example:
sub log10 {
my $n = shift;
return log($n)/log(10);
}
See also "exp" for the inverse operation.
lstat FILEHANDLE
lstat EXPR
lstat DIRHANDLE
lstat
Does the same thing as the "stat" function (including setting the
special "_" filehandle) but stats a symbolic link instead of the
file the symbolic link points to. If symbolic links are
unimplemented on your system, a normal "stat" is done. For much
more detailed information, please see the documentation for "stat".
If EXPR is omitted, stats $_.
Portability issues: "lstat" in perlport.
m// The match operator. See "Regexp Quote-Like Operators" in perlop.
map BLOCK LIST
map EXPR,LIST
Evaluates the BLOCK or EXPR for each element of LIST (locally
setting $_ to each element) and composes a list of the results of
each such evaluation. Each element of LIST may produce zero, one,
or more elements in the generated list, so the number of elements in
the generated list may differ from that in LIST. In scalar context,
returns the total number of elements so generated. In list context,
returns the generated list.
my @chars = map(chr, @numbers);
translates a list of numbers to the corresponding characters.
my @squares = map { $_ * $_ } @numbers;
translates a list of numbers to their squared values.
my @squares = map { $_ > 5 ? ($_ * $_) : () } @numbers;
shows that number of returned elements can differ from the number of
input elements. To omit an element, return an empty list (). This
could also be achieved by writing
my @squares = map { $_ * $_ } grep { $_ > 5 } @numbers;
which makes the intention more clear.
Map always returns a list, which can be assigned to a hash such that
the elements become key/value pairs. See perldata for more details.
my %hash = map { get_a_key_for($_) => $_ } @array;
is just a funny way to write
my %hash;
foreach (@array) {
$hash{get_a_key_for($_)} = $_;
}
Note that $_ is an alias to the list value, so it can be used to
modify the elements of the LIST. While this is useful and
supported, it can cause bizarre results if the elements of LIST are
not variables. Using a regular "foreach" loop for this purpose
would be clearer in most cases. See also "grep" for a list composed
of those items of the original list for which the BLOCK or EXPR
evaluates to true.
"{" starts both hash references and blocks, so "map { ..." could be
either the start of map BLOCK LIST or map EXPR, LIST. Because Perl
doesn't look ahead for the closing "}" it has to take a guess at
which it's dealing with based on what it finds just after the "{".
Usually it gets it right, but if it doesn't it won't realize
something is wrong until it gets to the "}" and encounters the
missing (or unexpected) comma. The syntax error will be reported
close to the "}", but you'll need to change something near the "{"
such as using a unary "+" or semicolon to give Perl some help:
my %hash = map { "\L$_" => 1 } @array # perl guesses EXPR. wrong
my %hash = map { +"\L$_" => 1 } @array # perl guesses BLOCK. right
my %hash = map {; "\L$_" => 1 } @array # this also works
my %hash = map { ("\L$_" => 1) } @array # as does this
my %hash = map { lc($_) => 1 } @array # and this.
my %hash = map +( lc($_) => 1 ), @array # this is EXPR and works!
my %hash = map ( lc($_), 1 ), @array # evaluates to (1, @array)
or to force an anon hash constructor use "+{":
my @hashes = map +{ lc($_) => 1 }, @array # EXPR, so needs
# comma at end
to get a list of anonymous hashes each with only one entry apiece.
method NAME BLOCK
method NAME : ATTRS BLOCK
Creates a new named method in the scope of the class that it appears
within. This is only valid inside a "class" declaration.
mkdir FILENAME,MODE
mkdir FILENAME
mkdir
Creates the directory specified by FILENAME, with permissions
specified by MODE (as modified by "umask"). If it succeeds it
returns true; otherwise it returns false and sets $! (errno). MODE
defaults to 0777 if omitted, and FILENAME defaults to $_ if omitted.
In general, it is better to create directories with a permissive
MODE and let the user modify that with their "umask" than it is to
supply a restrictive MODE and give the user no way to be more
permissive. The exceptions to this rule are when the file or
directory should be kept private (mail files, for instance). The
documentation for "umask" discusses the choice of MODE in more
detail. If bits in MODE other than the permission bits are set, the
result may be implementation defined, per POSIX 1003.1-2008.
Note that according to the POSIX 1003.1-1996 the FILENAME may have
any number of trailing slashes. Some operating and filesystems do
not get this right, so Perl automatically removes all trailing
slashes to keep everyone happy.
To recursively create a directory structure, look at the "make_path"
function of the File::Path module.
msgctl ID,CMD,ARG
Calls the System V IPC function msgctl(2). You'll probably have to
say
use IPC::SysV;
first to get the correct constant definitions. If CMD is
"IPC_STAT", then ARG must be a variable that will hold the returned
"msqid_ds" structure. Returns like "ioctl": the undefined value for
error, "0 but true" for zero, or the actual return value otherwise.
See also "SysV IPC" in perlipc and the documentation for "IPC::SysV"
and "IPC::Semaphore".
Portability issues: "msgctl" in perlport.
msgget KEY,FLAGS
Calls the System V IPC function msgget(2). Returns the message
queue id, or "undef" on error. See also "SysV IPC" in perlipc and
the documentation for "IPC::SysV" and "IPC::Msg".
Portability issues: "msgget" in perlport.
msgrcv ID,VAR,SIZE,TYPE,FLAGS
Calls the System V IPC function msgrcv to receive a message from
message queue ID into variable VAR with a maximum message size of
SIZE. Note that when a message is received, the message type as a
native long integer will be the first thing in VAR, followed by the
actual message. This packing may be opened with "unpack("l! a*")".
Taints the variable. Returns true if successful, false on error.
See also "SysV IPC" in perlipc and the documentation for "IPC::SysV"
and "IPC::Msg".
Portability issues: "msgrcv" in perlport.
msgsnd ID,MSG,FLAGS
Calls the System V IPC function msgsnd to send the message MSG to
the message queue ID. MSG must begin with the native long integer
message type, followed by the message itself. This kind of packing
can be achieved with "pack("l! a*", $type, $message)". Returns true
if successful, false on error. See also "SysV IPC" in perlipc and
the documentation for "IPC::SysV" and "IPC::Msg".
Portability issues: "msgsnd" in perlport.
my VARLIST
my TYPE VARLIST
my VARLIST : ATTRS
my TYPE VARLIST : ATTRS
A "my" declares the listed variables to be local (lexically) to the
enclosing block, file, or "eval". If more than one variable is
listed, the list must be placed in parentheses.
Note that with a parenthesised list, "undef" can be used as a dummy
placeholder, for example to skip assignment of initial values:
my ( undef, $min, $hour ) = localtime;
Like "state", "local", and "our", "my" can operate on a variable
anywhere it appears in an expression (aside from interpolation in
strings). The declaration will not apply to additional uses of the
same variable until the next statement. This means additional uses
of that variable within the same statement will act as they would
have before that declaration occurred, or result in a strict 'vars'
error, as appropriate.
package main;
our $x = 2;
foo($x, my $x = $x + 1, $x); # foo() receives (2, 3, 2)
foo($x, $main::x); # foo() receives (3, 2)
Redeclaring a variable in the same scope or statement will "shadow"
the previous declaration, creating a new instance and preventing
access to the previous one. This is usually undesired and, if
warnings are enabled, will result in a warning in the "shadow"
category.
The exact semantics and interface of TYPE and ATTRS are still
evolving. TYPE may be a bareword, a constant declared with "use
constant", or "__PACKAGE__". It is currently bound to the use of
the fields pragma, and attributes are handled using the attributes
pragma, or starting from Perl 5.8.0 also via the Attribute::Handlers
module. See "Private Variables via my()" in perlsub for details.
next LABEL
next EXPR
next
The "next" command is like the "continue" statement in C; it starts
the next iteration of the loop:
LINE: while (<STDIN>) {
next LINE if /^#/; # discard comments
#...
}
Note that if there were a "continue" block on the above, it would
get executed even on discarded lines. If LABEL is omitted, the
command refers to the innermost enclosing loop. The "next EXPR"
form, available as of Perl 5.18.0, allows a label name to be
computed at run time, being otherwise identical to "next LABEL".
"next" cannot return a value from a block that typically returns a
value, such as "eval {}", "sub {}", or "do {}". It will perform its
flow control behavior, which precludes any return value. It should
not be used to exit a "grep" or "map" operation.
Note that a block by itself is semantically identical to a loop that
executes once. Thus "next" will exit such a block early.
See also "continue" for an illustration of how "last", "next", and
"redo" work.
Unlike most named operators, this has the same precedence as
assignment. It is also exempt from the looks-like-a-function rule,
so "next ("foo")."bar"" will cause "bar" to be part of the argument
to "next".
no MODULE VERSION LIST
no MODULE VERSION
no MODULE LIST
no MODULE
no VERSION
See the "use" function, of which "no" is the opposite.
oct EXPR
oct Interprets EXPR as an octal string and returns the corresponding
value. An octal string consists of octal digits and, as of Perl
5.33.5, an optional "0o" or "o" prefix. Each octal digit may be
preceded by a single underscore, which will be ignored. (If EXPR
happens to start off with "0x" or "x", interprets it as a hex
string. If EXPR starts off with "0b" or "b", it is interpreted as a
binary string. Leading whitespace is ignored in all three cases.)
The following will handle decimal, binary, octal, and hex in
standard Perl notation:
$val = oct($val) if $val =~ /^0/;
If EXPR is omitted, uses $_. To go the other way (produce a number
in octal), use "sprintf" or "printf":
my $dec_perms = (stat("filename"))[2] & 07777;
my $oct_perm_str = sprintf "%o", $perms;
The "oct" function is commonly used when a string such as 644 needs
to be converted into a file mode, for example. Although Perl
automatically converts strings into numbers as needed, this
automatic conversion assumes base 10.
Leading white space is ignored without warning, as too are any
trailing non-digits, such as a decimal point ("oct" only handles
non-negative integers, not negative integers or floating point).
open FILEHANDLE,MODE,EXPR
open FILEHANDLE,MODE,EXPR,LIST
open FILEHANDLE,MODE,REFERENCE
open FILEHANDLE,EXPR
open FILEHANDLE
Associates an internal FILEHANDLE with the external file specified
by EXPR. That filehandle will subsequently allow you to perform I/O
operations on that file, such as reading from it or writing to it.
Instead of a filename, you may specify an external command (plus an
optional argument list) or a scalar reference, in order to open
filehandles on commands or in-memory scalars, respectively.
A thorough reference to "open" follows. For a gentler introduction
to the basics of "open", see also the perlopentut manual page.
Working with files
Most often, "open" gets invoked with three arguments: the
required FILEHANDLE (usually an empty scalar variable), followed
by MODE (usually a literal describing the I/O mode the
filehandle will use), and then the filename that the new
filehandle will refer to.
Simple examples
Reading from a file:
open(my $fh, "<", "input.txt")
or die "Can't open < input.txt: $!";
# Process every line in input.txt
while (my $line = readline($fh)) {
#
# ... do something interesting with $line here ...
#
}
or writing to one:
open(my $fh, ">", "output.txt")
or die "Can't open > output.txt: $!";
print $fh "This line gets printed into output.txt.\n";
For a summary of common filehandle operations such as these,
see "Files and I/O" in perlintro.
About filehandles
The first argument to "open", labeled FILEHANDLE in this
reference, is usually a scalar variable. (Exceptions exist,
described in "Other considerations", below.) If the call to
"open" succeeds, then the expression provided as FILEHANDLE
will get assigned an open filehandle. That filehandle
provides an internal reference to the specified external
file, conveniently stored in a Perl variable, and ready for
I/O operations such as reading and writing.
About modes
When calling "open" with three or more arguments, the second
argument -- labeled MODE here -- defines the open mode. MODE
is usually a literal string comprising special characters
that define the intended I/O role of the filehandle being
created: whether it's read-only, or read-and-write, and so
on.
If MODE is "<", the file is opened for input (read-only).
If MODE is ">", the file is opened for output, with existing
files first being truncated ("clobbered") and nonexisting
files newly created. If MODE is ">>", the file is opened
for appending, again being created if necessary.
You can put a "+" in front of the ">" or "<" to indicate
that you want both read and write access to the file; thus
"+<" is almost always preferred for read/write updates--the
"+>" mode would clobber the file first. You can't usually
use either read-write mode for updating textfiles, since
they have variable-length records. See the -i switch in
perlrun for a better approach. The file is created with
permissions of 0666 modified by the process's "umask" value.
These various prefixes correspond to the fopen(3) modes of
"r", "r+", "w", "w+", "a", and "a+".
More examples of different modes in action:
# Open a file for concatenation
open(my $log, ">>", "/usr/spool/news/twitlog")
or warn "Couldn't open log file; discarding input";
# Open a file for reading and writing
open(my $dbase, "+<", "dbase.mine")
or die "Can't open 'dbase.mine' for update: $!";
Checking the return value
Open returns nonzero on success, the undefined value
otherwise. If the "open" involved a pipe, the return value
happens to be the pid of the subprocess.
When opening a file, it's seldom a good idea to continue if
the request failed, so "open" is frequently used with "die".
Even if you want your code to do something other than "die"
on a failed open, you should still always check the return
value from opening a file.
Specifying I/O layers in MODE
You can use the three-argument form of open to specify I/O
layers (sometimes referred to as "disciplines") to apply to the
new filehandle. These affect how the input and output are
processed (see open and PerlIO for more details). For example:
# loads PerlIO::encoding automatically
open(my $fh, "<:encoding(UTF-8)", $filename)
|| die "Can't open UTF-8 encoded $filename: $!";
This opens the UTF8-encoded file containing Unicode characters;
see perluniintro. Note that if layers are specified in the
three-argument form, then default layers stored in "${^OPEN}"
(usually set by the open pragma or the switch "-CioD") are
ignored. Those layers will also be ignored if you specify a
colon with no name following it. In that case the default layer
for the operating system (:raw on Unix, :crlf on Windows) is
used.
On some systems (in general, DOS- and Windows-based systems)
"binmode" is necessary when you're not working with a text file.
For the sake of portability it is a good idea always to use it
when appropriate, and never to use it when it isn't appropriate.
Also, people can set their I/O to be by default UTF8-encoded
Unicode, not bytes.
Using "undef" for temporary files
As a special case the three-argument form with a read/write mode
and the third argument being "undef":
open(my $tmp, "+>", undef) or die ...
opens a filehandle to a newly created empty anonymous temporary
file. (This happens under any mode, which makes "+>" the only
useful and sensible mode to use.) You will need to "seek" to do
the reading.
Opening a filehandle into an in-memory scalar
You can open filehandles directly to Perl scalars instead of a
file or other resource external to the program. To do so,
provide a reference to that scalar as the third argument to
"open", like so:
open(my $memory, ">", \$var)
or die "Can't open memory file: $!";
print $memory "foo!\n"; # output will appear in $var
To (re)open "STDOUT" or "STDERR" as an in-memory file, close it
first:
close STDOUT;
open(STDOUT, ">", \$variable)
or die "Can't open STDOUT: $!";
The scalars for in-memory files are treated as octet strings:
unless the file is being opened with truncation the scalar may
not contain any code points over 0xFF.
Opening in-memory files can fail for a variety of reasons. As
with any other "open", check the return value for success.
Technical note: This feature works only when Perl is built with
PerlIO -- the default, except with older (pre-5.16) Perl
installations that were configured to not include it (e.g. via
"Configure -Uuseperlio"). You can see whether your Perl was
built with PerlIO by running "perl -V:useperlio". If it says
'define', you have PerlIO; otherwise you don't.
See perliol for detailed info on PerlIO.
Opening a filehandle into a command
If MODE is "|-", then the filename is interpreted as a command
to which output is to be piped, and if MODE is "-|", the
filename is interpreted as a command that pipes output to us.
In the two-argument (and one-argument) form, one should replace
dash ("-") with the command. See "Using open() for IPC" in
perlipc for more examples of this. (You are not allowed to
"open" to a command that pipes both in and out, but see
IPC::Open2, IPC::Open3, and "Bidirectional Communication with
Another Process" in perlipc for alternatives.)
open(my $article_fh, "-|", "caesar <$article") # decrypt
# article
or die "Can't start caesar: $!";
open(my $article_fh, "caesar <$article |") # ditto
or die "Can't start caesar: $!";
open(my $out_fh, "|-", "sort >Tmp$$") # $$ is our process id
or die "Can't start sort: $!";
In the form of pipe opens taking three or more arguments, if
LIST is specified (extra arguments after the command name) then
LIST becomes arguments to the command invoked if the platform
supports it. The meaning of "open" with more than three
arguments for non-pipe modes is not yet defined, but
experimental "layers" may give extra LIST arguments meaning.
If you open a pipe on the command "-" (that is, specify either
"|-" or "-|" with the one- or two-argument forms of "open"), an
implicit "fork" is done, so "open" returns twice: in the parent
process it returns the pid of the child process, and in the
child process it returns (a defined) 0. Use defined($pid) or
"//" to determine whether the open was successful.
For example, use either
my $child_pid = open(my $from_kid, "-|")
// die "Can't fork: $!";
or
my $child_pid = open(my $to_kid, "|-")
// die "Can't fork: $!";
followed by
if ($child_pid) {
# am the parent:
# either write $to_kid or else read $from_kid
...
waitpid $child_pid, 0;
} else {
# am the child; use STDIN/STDOUT normally
...
exit;
}
The filehandle behaves normally for the parent, but I/O to that
filehandle is piped from/to the STDOUT/STDIN of the child
process. In the child process, the filehandle isn't opened--I/O
happens from/to the new STDOUT/STDIN. Typically this is used
like the normal piped open when you want to exercise more
control over just how the pipe command gets executed, such as
when running setuid and you don't want to have to scan shell
commands for metacharacters.
The following blocks are more or less equivalent:
open(my $fh, "|tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'");
open(my $fh, "|-", "tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'");
open(my $fh, "|-") || exec 'tr', '[a-z]', '[A-Z]';
open(my $fh, "|-", "tr", '[a-z]', '[A-Z]');
open(my $fh, "cat -n '$file'|");
open(my $fh, "-|", "cat -n '$file'");
open(my $fh, "-|") || exec "cat", "-n", $file;
open(my $fh, "-|", "cat", "-n", $file);
The last two examples in each block show the pipe as "list
form", which is not yet supported on all platforms. (If your
platform has a real "fork", such as Linux and macOS, you can use
the list form; it also works on Windows with Perl 5.22 or
later.) You would want to use the list form of the pipe so you
can pass literal arguments to the command without risk of the
shell interpreting any shell metacharacters in them. However,
this also bars you from opening pipes to commands that
intentionally contain shell metacharacters, such as:
open(my $fh, "|cat -n | expand -4 | lpr")
|| die "Can't open pipeline to lpr: $!";
See "Safe Pipe Opens" in perlipc for more examples of this.
Duping filehandles
You may also, in the Bourne shell tradition, specify an EXPR
beginning with ">&", in which case the rest of the string is
interpreted as the name of a filehandle (or file descriptor, if
numeric) to be duped (as in dup(2)) and opened. You may use "&"
after ">", ">>", "<", "+>", "+>>", and "+<". The mode you
specify should match the mode of the original filehandle.
(Duping a filehandle does not take into account any existing
contents of IO buffers.) If you use the three-argument form,
then you can pass either a number, the name of a filehandle, or
the normal "reference to a glob".
Here is a script that saves, redirects, and restores "STDOUT"
and "STDERR" using various methods:
#!/usr/bin/perl
open(my $oldout, ">&STDOUT")
or die "Can't dup STDOUT: $!";
open(OLDERR, ">&", \*STDERR)
or die "Can't dup STDERR: $!";
open(STDOUT, '>', "foo.out")
or die "Can't redirect STDOUT: $!";
open(STDERR, ">&STDOUT")
or die "Can't dup STDOUT: $!";
select STDERR; $| = 1; # make unbuffered
select STDOUT; $| = 1; # make unbuffered
print STDOUT "stdout 1\n"; # this works for
print STDERR "stderr 1\n"; # subprocesses too
open(STDOUT, ">&", $oldout)
or die "Can't dup \$oldout: $!";
open(STDERR, ">&OLDERR")
or die "Can't dup OLDERR: $!";
print STDOUT "stdout 2\n";
print STDERR "stderr 2\n";
If you specify '<&=X', where "X" is a file descriptor number or
a filehandle, then Perl will do an equivalent of C's fdopen(3)
of that file descriptor (and not call dup(2)); this is more
parsimonious of file descriptors. For example:
# open for input, reusing the fileno of $fd
open(my $fh, "<&=", $fd)
or
open(my $fh, "<&=$fd")
or
# open for append, using the fileno of $oldfh
open(my $fh, ">>&=", $oldfh)
Being parsimonious on filehandles is also useful (besides being
parsimonious) for example when something is dependent on file
descriptors, like for example locking using "flock". If you do
just "open(my $A, ">>&", $B)", the filehandle $A will not have
the same file descriptor as $B, and therefore flock($A) will not
flock($B) nor vice versa. But with "open(my $A, ">>&=", $B)",
the filehandles will share the same underlying system file
descriptor.
Note that under Perls older than 5.8.0, Perl uses the standard C
library's' fdopen(3) to implement the "=" functionality. On
many Unix systems, fdopen(3) fails when file descriptors exceed
a certain value, typically 255. For Perls 5.8.0 and later,
PerlIO is (most often) the default.
Legacy usage
This section describes ways to call "open" outside of best
practices; you may encounter these uses in older code. Perl does
not consider their use deprecated, exactly, but neither is it
recommended in new code, for the sake of clarity and
readability.
Specifying mode and filename as a single argument
In the one- and two-argument forms of the call, the mode and
filename should be concatenated (in that order), preferably
separated by white space. You can--but shouldn't--omit the
mode in these forms when that mode is "<". It is safe to
use the two-argument form of "open" if the filename argument
is a known literal.
open(my $dbase, "+<dbase.mine") # ditto
or die "Can't open 'dbase.mine' for update: $!";
In the two-argument (and one-argument) form, opening "<-" or
"-" opens STDIN and opening ">-" opens STDOUT.
New code should favor the three-argument form of "open" over
this older form. Declaring the mode and the filename as two
distinct arguments avoids any confusion between the two.
Assigning a filehandle to a bareword
An older style is to use a bareword as the filehandle, as
open(FH, "<", "input.txt")
or die "Can't open < input.txt: $!";
Then you can use "FH" as the filehandle, in "close FH" and
"<FH>" and so on. Note that it's a global variable, so this
form is not recommended when dealing with filehandles other
than Perl's built-in ones (e.g. STDOUT and STDIN). In fact,
using a bareword for the filehandle is an error when the
"bareword_filehandles" feature has been disabled. This
feature is disabled automatically when in the scope of "use
v5.36.0" or later.
Calling "open" with one argument via global variables
As a shortcut, a one-argument call takes the filename from
the global scalar variable of the same name as the bareword
filehandle:
$ARTICLE = 100;
open(ARTICLE)
or die "Can't find article $ARTICLE: $!\n";
Here $ARTICLE must be a global scalar variable in the same
package as the filehandle - not one declared with "my" or
"state".
Other considerations
Automatic filehandle closure
The filehandle will be closed when its reference count
reaches zero. If it is a lexically scoped variable declared
with "my", that usually means the end of the enclosing
scope. However, this automatic close does not check for
errors, so it is better to explicitly close filehandles,
especially those used for writing:
close($handle)
|| warn "close failed: $!";
Automatic pipe flushing
Perl will attempt to flush all files opened for output
before any operation that may do a fork, but this may not be
supported on some platforms (see perlport). To be safe, you
may need to set $| ($AUTOFLUSH in English) or call the
"autoflush" method of "IO::Handle" on any open handles.
On systems that support a close-on-exec flag on files, the
flag will be set for the newly opened file descriptor as
determined by the value of $^F. See "$^F" in perlvar.
Closing any piped filehandle causes the parent process to
wait for the child to finish, then returns the status value
in $? and "${^CHILD_ERROR_NATIVE}".
Direct versus by-reference assignment of filehandles
If FILEHANDLE -- the first argument in a call to "open" --
is an undefined scalar variable (or array or hash element),
a new filehandle is autovivified, meaning that the variable
is assigned a reference to a newly allocated anonymous
filehandle. Otherwise if FILEHANDLE is an expression, its
value is the real filehandle. (This is considered a
symbolic reference, so "use strict "refs"" should not be in
effect.)
Whitespace and special characters in the filename argument
The filename passed to the one- and two-argument forms of
"open" will have leading and trailing whitespace deleted and
normal redirection characters honored. This property, known
as "magic open", can often be used to good effect. A user
could specify a filename of "rsh cat file |", or you could
change certain filenames as needed:
$filename =~ s/(.*\.gz)\s*$/gzip -dc < $1|/;
open(my $fh, $filename)
or die "Can't open $filename: $!";
Use the three-argument form to open a file with arbitrary
weird characters in it,
open(my $fh, "<", $file)
|| die "Can't open $file: $!";
otherwise it's necessary to protect any leading and trailing
whitespace:
$file =~ s#^(\s)#./$1#;
open(my $fh, "< $file\0")
|| die "Can't open $file: $!";
(this may not work on some bizarre filesystems). One should
conscientiously choose between the magic and three-argument
form of "open":
open(my $in, $ARGV[0]) || die "Can't open $ARGV[0]: $!";
will allow the user to specify an argument of the form "rsh
cat file |", but will not work on a filename that happens to
have a trailing space, while
open(my $in, "<", $ARGV[0])
|| die "Can't open $ARGV[0]: $!";
will have exactly the opposite restrictions. (However, some
shells support the syntax "perl your_program.pl <( rsh cat
file )", which produces a filename that can be opened
normally.)
Invoking C-style "open"
If you want a "real" C open(2), then you should use the
"sysopen" function, which involves no such magic (but uses
different filemodes than Perl "open", which corresponds to C
fopen(3)). This is another way to protect your filenames
from interpretation. For example:
use IO::Handle;
sysopen(my $fh, $path, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_EXCL)
or die "Can't open $path: $!";
$fh->autoflush(1);
print $fh "stuff $$\n";
seek($fh, 0, 0);
print "File contains: ", readline($fh);
See "seek" for some details about mixing reading and
writing.
Portability issues
See "open" in perlport.
opendir DIRHANDLE,EXPR
Opens a directory named EXPR for processing by "readdir", "telldir",
"seekdir", "rewinddir", and "closedir". Returns true if successful.
DIRHANDLE may be an expression whose value can be used as an
indirect dirhandle, usually the real dirhandle name. If DIRHANDLE
is an undefined scalar variable (or array or hash element), the
variable is assigned a reference to a new anonymous dirhandle; that
is, it's autovivified. Dirhandles are the same objects as
filehandles; an I/O object can only be open as one of these handle
types at once.
See the example at "readdir".
ord EXPR
ord Returns the code point of the first character of EXPR. If EXPR is
an empty string, returns 0. If EXPR is omitted, uses $_. (Note
character, not byte.)
For the reverse, see "chr". See perlunicode for more about Unicode.
our VARLIST
our TYPE VARLIST
our VARLIST : ATTRS
our TYPE VARLIST : ATTRS
"our" makes a lexical alias to a package (i.e. global) variable of
the same name in the current package for use within the current
lexical scope.
"our" has the same scoping rules as "my" or "state", meaning that it
is only valid within a lexical scope. Unlike "my" and "state",
which both declare new (lexical) variables, "our" only creates an
alias to an existing variable: a package variable of the same name.
This means that when "use strict 'vars'" is in effect, "our" lets
you use a package variable without qualifying it with the package
name, but only within the lexical scope of the "our" declaration.
This applies immediately--even within the same statement.
package Foo;
use v5.36; # which implies "use strict;"
$Foo::foo = 23;
{
our $foo; # alias to $Foo::foo
print $foo; # prints 23
}
print $Foo::foo; # prints 23
print $foo; # ERROR: requires explicit package name
This works even if the package variable has not been used before, as
package variables spring into existence when first used.
package Foo;
use v5.36;
our $foo = 23; # just like $Foo::foo = 23
print $Foo::foo; # prints 23
Because the variable becomes legal immediately under "use strict
'vars'", so long as there is no variable with that name is already
in scope, you can then reference the package variable again even
within the same statement.
package Foo;
use v5.36;
my $foo = $foo; # error, undeclared $foo on right-hand side
our $foo = $foo; # no errors
If more than one variable is listed, the list must be placed in
parentheses.
our($bar, $baz);
Like "my", "state", and "local", "our" can operate on a variable
anywhere it appears in an expression (aside from interpolation in
strings). The declaration will not apply to additional uses of the
same variable until the next statement. This means additional uses
of that variable within the same statement will act as they would
have before that declaration occurred, with the exception that it
will still satisfy strict 'vars' and interpret that variable as the
newly aliased package variable if it was not yet declared in that
scope.
package main;
my $x = 2;
foo($x, our $x = $x + 1, $x); # foo() receives (2, 3, 2)
foo($x, our $z = 5, $z); # foo() receives (3, 5, 5)
An "our" declaration declares an alias for a package variable that
will be visible across its entire lexical scope, even across package
boundaries. The package in which the variable is entered is
determined at the point of the declaration, not at the point of use.
This means the following behavior holds:
package Foo;
our $bar; # declares $Foo::bar for rest of lexical scope
$bar = 20;
package Bar;
print $bar; # prints 20, as it refers to $Foo::bar
Multiple "our" declarations with the same name in the same lexical
scope are allowed if they are in different packages. If they happen
to be in the same package, Perl will emit warnings if you have asked
for them, just like multiple "my" declarations. Unlike a second
"my" declaration, which will bind the name to a fresh variable, a
second "our" declaration in the same package, in the same scope, is
merely redundant.
use warnings;
package Foo;
our $bar; # declares $Foo::bar for rest of lexical scope
$bar = 20;
package Bar;
our $bar = 30; # declares $Bar::bar for rest of lexical scope
print $bar; # prints 30
our $bar; # emits warning but has no other effect
print $bar; # still prints 30
An "our" declaration may also have a list of attributes associated
with it.
The exact semantics and interface of TYPE and ATTRS are still
evolving. TYPE is currently bound to the use of the fields pragma,
and attributes are handled using the attributes pragma, or, starting
from Perl 5.8.0, also via the Attribute::Handlers module. See
"Private Variables via my()" in perlsub for details.
Note that with a parenthesised list, "undef" can be used as a dummy
placeholder, for example to skip assignment of initial values:
our ( undef, $min, $hour ) = localtime;
"our" differs from "use vars", which allows use of an unqualified
name only within the affected package, but across scopes.
pack TEMPLATE,LIST
Takes a LIST of values and converts it into a string using the rules
given by the TEMPLATE. The resulting string is the concatenation of
the converted values. Typically, each converted value looks like
its machine-level representation. For example, on 32-bit machines
an integer may be represented by a sequence of 4 bytes, which will
in Perl be presented as a string that's 4 characters long.
See perlpacktut for an introduction to this function.
The TEMPLATE is a sequence of characters that give the order and
type of values, as follows:
a A string with arbitrary binary data, will be null padded.
A A text (ASCII) string, will be space padded.
Z A null-terminated (ASCIZ) string, will be null padded.
b A bit string (ascending bit order inside each byte,
like vec()).
B A bit string (descending bit order inside each byte).
h A hex string (low nybble first).
H A hex string (high nybble first).
c A signed char (8-bit) value.
C An unsigned char (octet) value.
W An unsigned char value (can be greater than 255).
s A signed short (16-bit) value.
S An unsigned short value.
l A signed long (32-bit) value.
L An unsigned long value.
q A signed quad (64-bit) value.
Q An unsigned quad value.
(Quads are available only if your system supports 64-bit
integer values _and_ if Perl has been compiled to support
those. Raises an exception otherwise.)
i A signed integer value.
I An unsigned integer value.
(This 'integer' is _at_least_ 32 bits wide. Its exact
size depends on what a local C compiler calls 'int'.)
n An unsigned short (16-bit) in "network" (big-endian) order.
N An unsigned long (32-bit) in "network" (big-endian) order.
v An unsigned short (16-bit) in "VAX" (little-endian) order.
V An unsigned long (32-bit) in "VAX" (little-endian) order.
j A Perl internal signed integer value (IV).
J A Perl internal unsigned integer value (UV).
f A single-precision float in native format.
d A double-precision float in native format.
F A Perl internal floating-point value (NV) in native format
D A float of long-double precision in native format.
(Long doubles are available only if your system supports
long double values. Raises an exception otherwise.
Note that there are different long double formats.)
p A pointer to a null-terminated string.
P A pointer to a structure (fixed-length string).
u A uuencoded string.
U A Unicode character number. Encodes to a character in char-
acter mode and UTF-8 (or UTF-EBCDIC in EBCDIC platforms) in
byte mode. Also on EBCDIC platforms, the character number will
be the native EBCDIC value for character numbers below 256.
This allows most programs using this feature to not have to
care which type of platform they are running on.
w A BER compressed integer (not an ASN.1 BER, see perlpacktut
for details). Its bytes represent an unsigned integer in
base 128, most significant digit first, with as few digits
as possible. Bit eight (the high bit) is set on each byte
except the last.
x A null byte (a.k.a ASCII NUL, "\000", chr(0))
X Back up a byte.
@ Null-fill or truncate to absolute position, counted from the
start of the innermost ()-group.
. Null-fill or truncate to absolute position specified by
the value.
( Start of a ()-group.
One or more modifiers below may optionally follow certain letters in
the TEMPLATE (the second column lists letters for which the modifier
is valid):
! sSlLiI Forces native (short, long, int) sizes instead
of fixed (16-/32-bit) sizes.
! xX Make x and X act as alignment commands.
! nNvV Treat integers as signed instead of unsigned.
! @. Specify position as byte offset in the internal
representation of the packed string. Efficient
but dangerous.
> sSiIlLqQ Force big-endian byte-order on the type.
jJfFdDpP (The "big end" touches the construct.)
< sSiIlLqQ Force little-endian byte-order on the type.
jJfFdDpP (The "little end" touches the construct.)
The ">" and "<" modifiers can also be used on "()" groups to force a
particular byte-order on all components in that group, including all
its subgroups.
The following rules apply:
• Each letter may optionally be followed by a number indicating
the repeat count. A numeric repeat count may optionally be
enclosed in brackets, as in "pack("C[80]", @arr)". The repeat
count gobbles that many values from the LIST when used with all
format types other than "a", "A", "Z", "b", "B", "h", "H", "@",
".", "x", "X", and "P", where it means something else, described
below. Supplying a "*" for the repeat count instead of a number
means to use however many items are left, except for:
• "@", "x", and "X", where it is equivalent to 0.
• <.>, where it means relative to the start of the string.
• "u", where it is equivalent to 1 (or 45, which here is
equivalent).
One can replace a numeric repeat count with a template letter
enclosed in brackets to use the packed byte length of the
bracketed template for the repeat count.
For example, the template "x[L]" skips as many bytes as in a
packed long, and the template "$t X[$t] $t" unpacks twice
whatever $t (when variable-expanded) unpacks. If the template
in brackets contains alignment commands (such as "x![d]"), its
packed length is calculated as if the start of the template had
the maximal possible alignment.
When used with "Z", a "*" as the repeat count is guaranteed to
add a trailing null byte, so the resulting string is always one
byte longer than the byte length of the item itself.
When used with "@", the repeat count represents an offset from
the start of the innermost "()" group.
When used with ".", the repeat count determines the starting
position to calculate the value offset as follows:
• If the repeat count is 0, it's relative to the current
position.
• If the repeat count is "*", the offset is relative to the
start of the packed string.
• And if it's an integer n, the offset is relative to the
start of the nth innermost "( )" group, or to the start of
the string if n is bigger then the group level.
The repeat count for "u" is interpreted as the maximal number of
bytes to encode per line of output, with 0, 1 and 2 replaced by
45. The repeat count should not be more than 65.
• The "a", "A", and "Z" types gobble just one value, but pack it
as a string of length count, padding with nulls or spaces as
needed. When unpacking, "A" strips trailing whitespace and
nulls, "Z" strips everything after the first null, and "a"
returns data with no stripping at all.
If the value to pack is too long, the result is truncated. If
it's too long and an explicit count is provided, "Z" packs only
"$count-1" bytes, followed by a null byte. Thus "Z" always
packs a trailing null, except when the count is 0.
• Likewise, the "b" and "B" formats pack a string that's that many
bits long. Each such format generates 1 bit of the result.
These are typically followed by a repeat count like "B8" or
"B64".
Each result bit is based on the least-significant bit of the
corresponding input character, i.e., on "ord($char)%2". In
particular, characters "0" and "1" generate bits 0 and 1, as do
characters "\000" and "\001".
Starting from the beginning of the input string, each 8-tuple of
characters is converted to 1 character of output. With format
"b", the first character of the 8-tuple determines the least-
significant bit of a character; with format "B", it determines
the most-significant bit of a character.
If the length of the input string is not evenly divisible by 8,
the remainder is packed as if the input string were padded by
null characters at the end. Similarly during unpacking, "extra"
bits are ignored.
If the input string is longer than needed, remaining characters
are ignored.
A "*" for the repeat count uses all characters of the input
field. On unpacking, bits are converted to a string of 0s and
1s.
• The "h" and "H" formats pack a string that many nybbles (4-bit
groups, representable as hexadecimal digits, "0".."9" "a".."f")
long.
For each such format, "pack" generates 4 bits of result. With
non-alphabetical characters, the result is based on the 4 least-
significant bits of the input character, i.e., on
"ord($char)%16". In particular, characters "0" and "1" generate
nybbles 0 and 1, as do bytes "\000" and "\001". For characters
"a".."f" and "A".."F", the result is compatible with the usual
hexadecimal digits, so that "a" and "A" both generate the nybble
"0xA==10". Use only these specific hex characters with this
format.
Starting from the beginning of the template to "pack", each pair
of characters is converted to 1 character of output. With
format "h", the first character of the pair determines the
least-significant nybble of the output character; with format
"H", it determines the most-significant nybble.
If the length of the input string is not even, it behaves as if
padded by a null character at the end. Similarly, "extra"
nybbles are ignored during unpacking.
If the input string is longer than needed, extra characters are
ignored.
A "*" for the repeat count uses all characters of the input
field. For "unpack", nybbles are converted to a string of
hexadecimal digits.
• The "p" format packs a pointer to a null-terminated string. You
are responsible for ensuring that the string is not a temporary
value, as that could potentially get deallocated before you got
around to using the packed result. The "P" format packs a
pointer to a structure of the size indicated by the length. A
null pointer is created if the corresponding value for "p" or
"P" is "undef"; similarly with "unpack", where a null pointer
unpacks into "undef".
If your system has a strange pointer size--meaning a pointer is
neither as big as an int nor as big as a long--it may not be
possible to pack or unpack pointers in big- or little-endian
byte order. Attempting to do so raises an exception.
• The "/" template character allows packing and unpacking of a
sequence of items where the packed structure contains a packed
item count followed by the packed items themselves. This is
useful when the structure you're unpacking has encoded the sizes
or repeat counts for some of its fields within the structure
itself as separate fields.
For "pack", you write length-item"/"sequence-item, and the
length-item describes how the length value is packed. Formats
likely to be of most use are integer-packing ones like "n" for
Java strings, "w" for ASN.1 or SNMP, and "N" for Sun XDR.
For "pack", sequence-item may have a repeat count, in which case
the minimum of that and the number of available items is used as
the argument for length-item. If it has no repeat count or uses
a '*', the number of available items is used.
For "unpack", an internal stack of integer arguments unpacked so
far is used. You write "/"sequence-item and the repeat count is
obtained by popping off the last element from the stack. The
sequence-item must not have a repeat count.
If sequence-item refers to a string type ("A", "a", or "Z"), the
length-item is the string length, not the number of strings.
With an explicit repeat count for pack, the packed string is
adjusted to that length. For example:
This code: gives this result:
unpack("W/a", "\004Gurusamy") ("Guru")
unpack("a3/A A*", "007 Bond J ") (" Bond", "J")
unpack("a3 x2 /A A*", "007: Bond, J.") ("Bond, J", ".")
pack("n/a* w/a","hello,","world") "\000\006hello,\005world"
pack("a/W2", ord("a") .. ord("z")) "2ab"
The length-item is not returned explicitly from "unpack".
Supplying a count to the length-item format letter is only
useful with "A", "a", or "Z". Packing with a length-item of "a"
or "Z" may introduce "\000" characters, which Perl does not
regard as legal in numeric strings.
• The integer types "s", "S", "l", and "L" may be followed by a
"!" modifier to specify native shorts or longs. As shown in the
example above, a bare "l" means exactly 32 bits, although the
native "long" as seen by the local C compiler may be larger.
This is mainly an issue on 64-bit platforms. You can see
whether using "!" makes any difference this way:
printf "format s is %d, s! is %d\n",
length pack("s"), length pack("s!");
printf "format l is %d, l! is %d\n",
length pack("l"), length pack("l!");
"i!" and "I!" are also allowed, but only for completeness' sake:
they are identical to "i" and "I".
The actual sizes (in bytes) of native shorts, ints, longs, and
long longs on the platform where Perl was built are also
available from the command line:
$ perl -V:{short,int,long{,long}}size
shortsize='2';
intsize='4';
longsize='4';
longlongsize='8';
or programmatically via the "Config" module:
use Config;
print $Config{shortsize}, "\n";
print $Config{intsize}, "\n";
print $Config{longsize}, "\n";
print $Config{longlongsize}, "\n";
$Config{longlongsize} is undefined on systems without long long
support.
• The integer formats "s", "S", "i", "I", "l", "L", "j", and "J"
are inherently non-portable between processors and operating
systems because they obey native byteorder and endianness. For
example, a 4-byte integer 0x12345678 (305419896 decimal) would
be ordered natively (arranged in and handled by the CPU
registers) into bytes as
0x12 0x34 0x56 0x78 # big-endian
0x78 0x56 0x34 0x12 # little-endian
Basically, Intel and VAX CPUs are little-endian, while everybody
else, including Motorola m68k/88k, PPC, Sparc, HP PA, Power, and
Cray, are big-endian. Alpha and MIPS can be either:
Digital/Compaq uses (well, used) them in little-endian mode, but
SGI/Cray uses them in big-endian mode.
The names big-endian and little-endian are comic references to
the egg-eating habits of the little-endian Lilliputians and the
big-endian Blefuscudians from the classic Jonathan Swift satire,
Gulliver's Travels. This entered computer lingo via the paper
"On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace" by Danny Cohen, USC/ISI IEN
137, April 1, 1980.
Some systems may have even weirder byte orders such as
0x56 0x78 0x12 0x34
0x34 0x12 0x78 0x56
These are called mid-endian, middle-endian, mixed-endian, or
just weird.
You can determine your system endianness with this incantation:
printf("%#02x ", $_) for unpack("W*", pack L=>0x12345678);
The byteorder on the platform where Perl was built is also
available via Config:
use Config;
print "$Config{byteorder}\n";
or from the command line:
$ perl -V:byteorder
Byteorders "1234" and "12345678" are little-endian; "4321" and
"87654321" are big-endian. Systems with multiarchitecture
binaries will have "ffff", signifying that static information
doesn't work, one must use runtime probing.
For portably packed integers, either use the formats "n", "N",
"v", and "V" or else use the ">" and "<" modifiers described
immediately below. See also perlport.
• Also floating point numbers have endianness. Usually (but not
always) this agrees with the integer endianness. Even though
most platforms these days use the IEEE 754 binary format, there
are differences, especially if the long doubles are involved.
You can see the "Config" variables "doublekind" and
"longdblkind" (also "doublesize", "longdblsize"): the "kind"
values are enums, unlike "byteorder".
Portability-wise the best option is probably to keep to the IEEE
754 64-bit doubles, and of agreed-upon endianness. Another
possibility is the "%a") format of "printf".
• Starting with Perl 5.10.0, integer and floating-point formats,
along with the "p" and "P" formats and "()" groups, may all be
followed by the ">" or "<" endianness modifiers to respectively
enforce big- or little-endian byte-order. These modifiers are
especially useful given how "n", "N", "v", and "V" don't cover
signed integers, 64-bit integers, or floating-point values.
Here are some concerns to keep in mind when using an endianness
modifier:
• Exchanging signed integers between different platforms works
only when all platforms store them in the same format. Most
platforms store signed integers in two's-complement
notation, so usually this is not an issue.
• The ">" or "<" modifiers can only be used on floating-point
formats on big- or little-endian machines. Otherwise,
attempting to use them raises an exception.
• Forcing big- or little-endian byte-order on floating-point
values for data exchange can work only if all platforms use
the same binary representation such as IEEE floating-point.
Even if all platforms are using IEEE, there may still be
subtle differences. Being able to use ">" or "<" on
floating-point values can be useful, but also dangerous if
you don't know exactly what you're doing. It is not a
general way to portably store floating-point values.
• When using ">" or "<" on a "()" group, this affects all
types inside the group that accept byte-order modifiers,
including all subgroups. It is silently ignored for all
other types. You are not allowed to override the byte-order
within a group that already has a byte-order modifier
suffix.
• Real numbers (floats and doubles) are in native machine format
only. Due to the multiplicity of floating-point formats and the
lack of a standard "network" representation for them, no
facility for interchange has been made. This means that packed
floating-point data written on one machine may not be readable
on another, even if both use IEEE floating-point arithmetic
(because the endianness of the memory representation is not part
of the IEEE spec). See also perlport.
If you know exactly what you're doing, you can use the ">" or
"<" modifiers to force big- or little-endian byte-order on
floating-point values.
Because Perl uses doubles (or long doubles, if configured)
internally for all numeric calculation, converting from double
into float and thence to double again loses precision, so
"unpack("f", pack("f", $foo)") will not in general equal $foo.
• Pack and unpack can operate in two modes: character mode ("C0"
mode) where the packed string is processed per character, and
UTF-8 byte mode ("U0" mode) where the packed string is processed
in its UTF-8-encoded Unicode form on a byte-by-byte basis.
Character mode is the default unless the format string starts
with "U". You can always switch mode mid-format with an
explicit "C0" or "U0" in the format. This mode remains in
effect until the next mode change, or until the end of the "()"
group it (directly) applies to.
Using "C0" to get Unicode characters while using "U0" to get
non-Unicode bytes is not necessarily obvious. Probably only
the first of these is what you want:
$ perl -CS -E 'say "\x{3B1}\x{3C9}"' |
perl -CS -ne 'printf "%v04X\n", $_ for unpack("C0A*", $_)'
03B1.03C9
$ perl -CS -E 'say "\x{3B1}\x{3C9}"' |
perl -CS -ne 'printf "%v02X\n", $_ for unpack("U0A*", $_)'
CE.B1.CF.89
$ perl -CS -E 'say "\x{3B1}\x{3C9}"' |
perl -C0 -ne 'printf "%v02X\n", $_ for unpack("C0A*", $_)'
CE.B1.CF.89
$ perl -CS -E 'say "\x{3B1}\x{3C9}"' |
perl -C0 -ne 'printf "%v02X\n", $_ for unpack("U0A*", $_)'
C3.8E.C2.B1.C3.8F.C2.89
Those examples also illustrate that you should not try to use
"pack"/"unpack" as a substitute for the Encode module.
• You must yourself do any alignment or padding by inserting, for
example, enough "x"es while packing. There is no way for "pack"
and "unpack" to know where characters are going to or coming
from, so they handle their output and input as flat sequences of
characters.
• A "()" group is a sub-TEMPLATE enclosed in parentheses. A group
may take a repeat count either as postfix, or for "unpack", also
via the "/" template character. Within each repetition of a
group, positioning with "@" starts over at 0. Therefore, the
result of
pack("@1A((@2A)@3A)", qw[X Y Z])
is the string "\0X\0\0YZ".
• "x" and "X" accept the "!" modifier to act as alignment
commands: they jump forward or back to the closest position
aligned at a multiple of "count" characters. For example, to
"pack" or "unpack" a C structure like
struct {
char c; /* one signed, 8-bit character */
double d;
char cc[2];
}
one may need to use the template "c x![d] d c[2]". This assumes
that doubles must be aligned to the size of double.
For alignment commands, a "count" of 0 is equivalent to a
"count" of 1; both are no-ops.
• "n", "N", "v" and "V" accept the "!" modifier to represent
signed 16-/32-bit integers in big-/little-endian order. This is
portable only when all platforms sharing packed data use the
same binary representation for signed integers; for example,
when all platforms use two's-complement representation.
• Comments can be embedded in a TEMPLATE using "#" through the end
of line. White space can separate pack codes from each other,
but modifiers and repeat counts must follow immediately.
Breaking complex templates into individual line-by-line
components, suitably annotated, can do as much to improve
legibility and maintainability of pack/unpack formats as "/x"
can for complicated pattern matches.
• If TEMPLATE requires more arguments than "pack" is given, "pack"
assumes additional "" arguments. If TEMPLATE requires fewer
arguments than given, extra arguments are ignored.
• Attempting to pack the special floating point values "Inf" and
"NaN" (infinity, also in negative, and not-a-number) into packed
integer values (like "L") is a fatal error. The reason for this
is that there simply isn't any sensible mapping for these
special values into integers.
Examples:
$foo = pack("WWWW",65,66,67,68);
# foo eq "ABCD"
$foo = pack("W4",65,66,67,68);
# same thing
$foo = pack("W4",0x24b6,0x24b7,0x24b8,0x24b9);
# same thing with Unicode circled letters.
$foo = pack("U4",0x24b6,0x24b7,0x24b8,0x24b9);
# same thing with Unicode circled letters. You don't get the
# UTF-8 bytes because the U at the start of the format caused
# a switch to U0-mode, so the UTF-8 bytes get joined into
# characters
$foo = pack("C0U4",0x24b6,0x24b7,0x24b8,0x24b9);
# foo eq "\xe2\x92\xb6\xe2\x92\xb7\xe2\x92\xb8\xe2\x92\xb9"
# This is the UTF-8 encoding of the string in the
# previous example
$foo = pack("ccxxcc",65,66,67,68);
# foo eq "AB\0\0CD"
# NOTE: The examples above featuring "W" and "c" are true
# only on ASCII and ASCII-derived systems such as ISO Latin 1
# and UTF-8. On EBCDIC systems, the first example would be
# $foo = pack("WWWW",193,194,195,196);
$foo = pack("s2",1,2);
# "\001\000\002\000" on little-endian
# "\000\001\000\002" on big-endian
$foo = pack("a4","abcd","x","y","z");
# "abcd"
$foo = pack("aaaa","abcd","x","y","z");
# "axyz"
$foo = pack("a14","abcdefg");
# "abcdefg\0\0\0\0\0\0\0"
$foo = pack("i9pl", gmtime);
# a real struct tm (on my system anyway)
$utmp_template = "Z8 Z8 Z16 L";
$utmp = pack($utmp_template, @utmp1);
# a struct utmp (BSDish)
@utmp2 = unpack($utmp_template, $utmp);
# "@utmp1" eq "@utmp2"
sub bintodec {
unpack("N", pack("B32", substr("0" x 32 . shift, -32)));
}
$foo = pack('sx2l', 12, 34);
# short 12, two zero bytes padding, long 34
$bar = pack('s@4l', 12, 34);
# short 12, zero fill to position 4, long 34
# $foo eq $bar
$baz = pack('s.l', 12, 4, 34);
# short 12, zero fill to position 4, long 34
$foo = pack('nN', 42, 4711);
# pack big-endian 16- and 32-bit unsigned integers
$foo = pack('S>L>', 42, 4711);
# exactly the same
$foo = pack('s<l<', -42, 4711);
# pack little-endian 16- and 32-bit signed integers
$foo = pack('(sl)<', -42, 4711);
# exactly the same
The same template may generally also be used in "unpack".
package NAMESPACE
package NAMESPACE VERSION
package NAMESPACE BLOCK
package NAMESPACE VERSION BLOCK
Declares the BLOCK or the rest of the compilation unit as being in
the given namespace. The scope of the package declaration is either
the supplied code BLOCK or, in the absence of a BLOCK, from the
declaration itself through the end of current scope (the enclosing
block, file, or "eval"). That is, the forms without a BLOCK are
operative through the end of the current scope, just like the "my",
"state", and "our" operators. All unqualified dynamic identifiers
in this scope will be in the given namespace, except where
overridden by another "package" declaration or when they're one of
the special identifiers that qualify into "main::", like "STDOUT",
"ARGV", "ENV", and the punctuation variables.
A package statement affects dynamic variables only, including those
you've used "local" on, but not lexically-scoped variables, which
are created with "my", "state", or "our". Typically it would be the
first declaration in a file included by "require" or "use". You can
switch into a package in more than one place, since this only
determines which default symbol table the compiler uses for the rest
of that block. You can refer to identifiers in other packages than
the current one by prefixing the identifier with the package name
and a double colon, as in $SomePack::var or
"ThatPack::INPUT_HANDLE". If package name is omitted, the "main"
package is assumed. That is, $::sail is equivalent to $main::sail
(as well as to "$main'sail", still seen in ancient code, mostly from
Perl 4).
If VERSION is provided, "package" sets the $VERSION variable in the
given namespace to a version object with the VERSION provided.
VERSION must be a "strict" style version number as defined by the
version module: a positive decimal number (integer or decimal-
fraction) without exponentiation or else a dotted-decimal v-string
with a leading 'v' character and at least three components. You
should set $VERSION only once per package.
See "Packages" in perlmod for more information about packages,
modules, and classes. See perlsub for other scoping issues.
__PACKAGE__
A special token that returns the name of the package in which it
occurs.
__CLASS__
Invoked within a "method", or similar location, such as a field
initializer expression, this token returns the name of the class of
the invoking instance. Essentially it is equivalent to ref($self)
except that it can additionally be used in a field initializer to
gain access to class methods, before the instance is fully
constructed.
use feature 'class';
class Example1 {
field $f = __CLASS__->default_f;
sub default_f { 10 }
}
In a basic class, this value will be the same as "__PACKAGE__". The
distinction can be seen when a subclass is constructed; it will give
the class name of the instance being constructed, rather than just
the package name that the actual code belongs to.
class Example2 :isa(Example1) {
sub default_f { 20 }
}
my $obj = Example2->new;
# The $f field now has the value 20
pipe READHANDLE,WRITEHANDLE
Opens a pair of connected pipes like the corresponding system call.
Note that if you set up a loop of piped processes, deadlock can
occur unless you are very careful. In addition, note that Perl's
pipes use IO buffering, so you may need to set $| to flush your
WRITEHANDLE after each command, depending on the application.
Returns true on success.
See IPC::Open2, IPC::Open3, and "Bidirectional Communication with
Another Process" in perlipc for examples of such things.
On systems that support a close-on-exec flag on files, that flag is
set on all newly opened file descriptors whose "fileno"s are higher
than the current value of $^F (by default 2 for "STDERR"). See
"$^F" in perlvar.
pop ARRAY
pop Removes and returns the last element of the array, shortening the
array by one element.
my @arr = ('cat', 'dog', 'mouse');
my $item = pop(@arr); # 'mouse'
# @arr is now ('cat', 'dog')
Returns "undef" if the array is empty.
Note: "pop" may also return "undef" if the last element in the array
is "undef".
my @arr = ('one', 'two', undef);
my $item = pop(@arr); # undef
If ARRAY is omitted, "pop" operates on the @ARGV array in the main
program, but the @_ array in subroutines. "pop" will operate on the
@ARGV array in "eval STRING", "BEGIN {}", "INIT {}", "CHECK {}"
blocks.
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowed "pop" to
take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed
unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
pos SCALAR
pos Returns the offset of where the last "m//g" search left off for the
variable in question ($_ is used when the variable is not
specified). This offset is in characters unless the (no-longer-
recommended) "use bytes" pragma is in effect, in which case the
offset is in bytes. Note that 0 is a valid match offset. "undef"
indicates that the search position is reset (usually due to match
failure, but can also be because no match has yet been run on the
scalar).
"pos" directly accesses the location used by the regexp engine to
store the offset, so assigning to "pos" will change that offset, and
so will also influence the "\G" zero-width assertion in regular
expressions. Both of these effects take place for the next match,
so you can't affect the position with "pos" during the current
match, such as in "(?{pos() = 5})" or "s//pos() = 5/e".
Setting "pos" also resets the matched with zero-length flag,
described under "Repeated Patterns Matching a Zero-length Substring"
in perlre.
Because a failed "m//gc" match doesn't reset the offset, the return
from "pos" won't change either in this case. See perlre and perlop.
print FILEHANDLE LIST
print FILEHANDLE
print LIST
print
Prints a string or a list of strings. Returns true if successful.
FILEHANDLE may be a scalar variable containing the name of or a
reference to the filehandle, thus introducing one level of
indirection. (NOTE: If FILEHANDLE is a variable and the next token
is a term, it may be misinterpreted as an operator unless you
interpose a "+" or put parentheses around the arguments.) If
FILEHANDLE is omitted, prints to the last selected (see "select")
output handle. If LIST is omitted, prints $_ to the currently
selected output handle. To use FILEHANDLE alone to print the
content of $_ to it, you must use a bareword filehandle like "FH",
not an indirect one like $fh. To set the default output handle to
something other than STDOUT, use the select operation.
The current value of $, (if any) is printed between each LIST item.
The current value of "$\" (if any) is printed after the entire LIST
has been printed. Because print takes a LIST, anything in the LIST
is evaluated in list context, including any subroutines whose return
lists you pass to "print". Be careful not to follow the print
keyword with a left parenthesis unless you want the corresponding
right parenthesis to terminate the arguments to the print; put
parentheses around all arguments (or interpose a "+", but that
doesn't look as good).
If you're storing handles in an array or hash, or in general
whenever you're using any expression more complex than a bareword
handle or a plain, unsubscripted scalar variable to retrieve it, you
will have to use a block returning the filehandle value instead, in
which case the LIST may not be omitted:
print { $files[$i] } "stuff\n";
print { $OK ? *STDOUT : *STDERR } "stuff\n";
Printing to a closed pipe or socket will generate a SIGPIPE signal.
See perlipc for more on signal handling.
printf FILEHANDLE FORMAT, LIST
printf FILEHANDLE
printf FORMAT, LIST
printf
Equivalent to "print FILEHANDLE sprintf(FORMAT, LIST)", except that
"$\" (the output record separator) is not appended. The FORMAT and
the LIST are actually parsed as a single list. The first argument
of the list will be interpreted as the "printf" format. This means
that printf(@_) will use $_[0] as the format. See sprintf for an
explanation of the format argument. If "use locale" (including "use
locale ':not_characters'") is in effect and "POSIX::setlocale" has
been called, the character used for the decimal separator in
formatted floating-point numbers is affected by the "LC_NUMERIC"
locale setting. See perllocale and POSIX.
For historical reasons, if you omit the list, $_ is used as the
format; to use FILEHANDLE without a list, you must use a bareword
filehandle like "FH", not an indirect one like $fh. However, this
will rarely do what you want; if $_ contains formatting codes, they
will be replaced with the empty string and a warning will be emitted
if warnings are enabled. Just use "print" if you want to print the
contents of $_.
Don't fall into the trap of using a "printf" when a simple "print"
would do. The "print" is more efficient and less error prone.
prototype FUNCTION
prototype
Returns the prototype of a function as a string (or "undef" if the
function has no prototype). FUNCTION is a reference to, or the name
of, the function whose prototype you want to retrieve. If FUNCTION
is omitted, $_ is used.
If FUNCTION is a string starting with "CORE::", the rest is taken as
a name for a Perl builtin. If the builtin's arguments cannot be
adequately expressed by a prototype (such as "system"), "prototype"
returns "undef", because the builtin does not really behave like a
Perl function. Otherwise, the string describing the equivalent
prototype is returned.
push ARRAY,LIST
Adds one or more items to the end of an array.
my @animals = ("cat");
push(@animals, "mouse"); # ("cat", "mouse")
my @colors = ("red");
push(@colors, ("blue", "green")); # ("red", "blue", "green")
Returns the number of elements in the array following the completed
"push".
my $color_count = push(@colors, ("yellow", "purple"));
say "There are $color_count colors in the updated array";
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowed "push" to
take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed
unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
q/STRING/
qq/STRING/
qw/STRING/
qx/STRING/
Generalized quotes. See "Quote-Like Operators" in perlop.
qr/STRING/
Regexp-like quote. See "Regexp Quote-Like Operators" in perlop.
quotemeta EXPR
quotemeta
Returns the value of EXPR with all the ASCII non-"word" characters
backslashed. (That is, all ASCII characters not matching
"/[A-Za-z_0-9]/" will be preceded by a backslash in the returned
string, regardless of any locale settings.) This is the internal
function implementing the "\Q" escape in double-quoted strings.
(See below for the behavior on non-ASCII code points.)
If EXPR is omitted, uses $_.
quotemeta (and "\Q" ... "\E") are useful when interpolating strings
into regular expressions, because by default an interpolated
variable will be considered a mini-regular expression. For example:
my $sentence = 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog';
my $substring = 'quick.*?fox';
$sentence =~ s{$substring}{big bad wolf};
Will cause $sentence to become 'The big bad wolf jumped over...'.
On the other hand:
my $sentence = 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog';
my $substring = 'quick.*?fox';
$sentence =~ s{\Q$substring\E}{big bad wolf};
Or:
my $sentence = 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog';
my $substring = 'quick.*?fox';
my $quoted_substring = quotemeta($substring);
$sentence =~ s{$quoted_substring}{big bad wolf};
Will both leave the sentence as is. Normally, when accepting
literal string input from the user, "quotemeta" or "\Q" must be
used.
Beware that if you put literal backslashes (those not inside
interpolated variables) between "\Q" and "\E", double-quotish
backslash interpolation may lead to confusing results. If you need
to use literal backslashes within "\Q...\E", consult "Gory details
of parsing quoted constructs" in perlop.
Because the result of "\Q STRING \E" has all metacharacters quoted,
there is no way to insert a literal "$" or "@" inside a "\Q\E" pair.
If protected by "\", "$" will be quoted to become "\\\$"; if not, it
is interpreted as the start of an interpolated scalar.
In Perl v5.14, all non-ASCII characters are quoted in
non-UTF-8-encoded strings, but not quoted in UTF-8 strings.
Starting in Perl v5.16, Perl adopted a Unicode-defined strategy for
quoting non-ASCII characters; the quoting of ASCII characters is
unchanged.
Also unchanged is the quoting of non-UTF-8 strings when outside the
scope of a "use feature 'unicode_strings'", which is to quote all
characters in the upper Latin1 range. This provides complete
backwards compatibility for old programs which do not use Unicode.
(Note that "unicode_strings" is automatically enabled within the
scope of a "use v5.12" or greater.)
Within the scope of "use locale", all non-ASCII Latin1 code points
are quoted whether the string is encoded as UTF-8 or not. As
mentioned above, locale does not affect the quoting of ASCII-range
characters. This protects against those locales where characters
such as "|" are considered to be word characters.
Otherwise, Perl quotes non-ASCII characters using an adaptation from
Unicode (see <https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr31/>). The only
code points that are quoted are those that have any of the Unicode
properties: Pattern_Syntax, Pattern_White_Space, White_Space,
Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, or General_Category=Control.
Of these properties, the two important ones are Pattern_Syntax and
Pattern_White_Space. They have been set up by Unicode for exactly
this purpose of deciding which characters in a regular expression
pattern should be quoted. No character that can be in an identifier
has these properties.
Perl promises, that if we ever add regular expression pattern
metacharacters to the dozen already defined ("\ | ( ) [ { ^ $ * + ?
."), that we will only use ones that have the Pattern_Syntax
property. Perl also promises, that if we ever add characters that
are considered to be white space in regular expressions (currently
mostly affected by "/x"), they will all have the Pattern_White_Space
property.
Unicode promises that the set of code points that have these two
properties will never change, so something that is not quoted in
v5.16 will never need to be quoted in any future Perl release. (Not
all the code points that match Pattern_Syntax have actually had
characters assigned to them; so there is room to grow, but they are
quoted whether assigned or not. Perl, of course, would never use an
unassigned code point as an actual metacharacter.)
Quoting characters that have the other 3 properties is done to
enhance the readability of the regular expression and not because
they actually need to be quoted for regular expression purposes
(characters with the White_Space property are likely to be
indistinguishable on the page or screen from those with the
Pattern_White_Space property; and the other two properties contain
non-printing characters).
rand EXPR
rand
Returns a random fractional number greater than or equal to 0 and
less than the value of EXPR. (EXPR should be positive.) If EXPR is
omitted, the value 1 is used. Currently EXPR with the value 0 is
also special-cased as 1 (this was undocumented before Perl 5.8.0 and
is subject to change in future versions of Perl). Automatically
calls "srand" unless "srand" has already been called. See also
"srand".
Apply "int" to the value returned by "rand" if you want random
integers instead of random fractional numbers. For example,
int(rand(10))
returns a random integer between 0 and 9, inclusive.
(Note: If your rand function consistently returns numbers that are
too large or too small, then your version of Perl was probably
compiled with the wrong number of RANDBITS.)
"rand" is not cryptographically secure. You should not rely on it
in security-sensitive situations. As of this writing, a number of
third-party CPAN modules offer random number generators intended by
their authors to be cryptographically secure, including:
Data::Entropy, Crypt::Random, Math::Random::Secure, and
Math::TrulyRandom.
read FILEHANDLE,SCALAR,LENGTH,OFFSET
read FILEHANDLE,SCALAR,LENGTH
Attempts to read LENGTH characters of data into variable SCALAR from
the specified FILEHANDLE. Returns the number of characters actually
read, 0 at end of file, or undef if there was an error (in the
latter case $! is also set). SCALAR will be grown or shrunk so that
the last character actually read is the last character of the scalar
after the read.
An OFFSET may be specified to place the read data at some place in
the string other than the beginning. A negative OFFSET specifies
placement at that many characters counting backwards from the end of
the string. A positive OFFSET greater than the length of SCALAR
results in the string being padded to the required size with "\0"
bytes before the result of the read is appended.
The call is implemented in terms of either Perl's or your system's
native fread(3) library function, via the PerlIO layers applied to
the handle. To get a true read(2) system call, see sysread.
Note the characters: depending on the status of the filehandle,
either (8-bit) bytes or characters are read. By default, all
filehandles operate on bytes, but for example if the filehandle has
been opened with the ":utf8" I/O layer (see "open", and the open
pragma), the I/O will operate on UTF8-encoded Unicode characters,
not bytes. Similarly for the ":encoding" layer: in that case pretty
much any characters can be read.
readdir DIRHANDLE
Returns the next directory entry for a directory opened by
"opendir". If used in list context, returns all the rest of the
entries in the directory. If there are no more entries, returns the
undefined value in scalar context and the empty list in list
context.
If you're planning to filetest the return values out of a "readdir",
you'd better prepend the directory in question. Otherwise, because
we didn't "chdir" there, it would have been testing the wrong file.
opendir(my $dh, $some_dir) || die "Can't opendir $some_dir: $!";
my @dots = grep { /^\./ && -f "$some_dir/$_" } readdir($dh);
closedir $dh;
As of Perl 5.12 you can use a bare "readdir" in a "while" loop,
which will set $_ on every iteration. If either a "readdir"
expression or an explicit assignment of a "readdir" expression to a
scalar is used as a "while"/"for" condition, then the condition
actually tests for definedness of the expression's value, not for
its regular truth value.
opendir(my $dh, $some_dir) || die "Can't open $some_dir: $!";
while (readdir $dh) {
print "$some_dir/$_\n";
}
closedir $dh;
To avoid confusing would-be users of your code who are running
earlier versions of Perl with mysterious failures, put this sort of
thing at the top of your file to signal that your code will work
only on Perls of a recent vintage:
use v5.12; # so readdir assigns to $_ in a lone while test
readline EXPR
readline
Reads from the filehandle whose typeglob is contained in EXPR (or
from *ARGV if EXPR is not provided). In scalar context, each call
reads and returns the next line until end-of-file is reached,
whereupon the subsequent call returns "undef". In list context,
reads until end-of-file is reached and returns a list of lines.
Note that the notion of "line" used here is whatever you may have
defined with $/ (or $INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR in English). See "$/"
in perlvar.
When $/ is set to "undef", when "readline" is in scalar context
(i.e., file slurp mode), and when an empty file is read, it returns
'' the first time, followed by "undef" subsequently.
This is the internal function implementing the "<EXPR>" operator,
but you can use it directly. The "<EXPR>" operator is discussed in
more detail in "I/O Operators" in perlop.
my $line = <STDIN>;
my $line = readline(STDIN); # same thing
If "readline" encounters an operating system error, $! will be set
with the corresponding error message. It can be helpful to check $!
when you are reading from filehandles you don't trust, such as a tty
or a socket. The following example uses the operator form of
"readline" and dies if the result is not defined.
while ( ! eof($fh) ) {
defined( $_ = readline $fh ) or die "readline failed: $!";
...
}
Note that you can't handle "readline" errors that way with the
"ARGV" filehandle. In that case, you have to open each element of
@ARGV yourself since "eof" handles "ARGV" differently.
foreach my $arg (@ARGV) {
open(my $fh, $arg) or warn "Can't open $arg: $!";
while ( ! eof($fh) ) {
defined( $_ = readline $fh )
or die "readline failed for $arg: $!";
...
}
}
Like the "<EXPR>" operator, if a "readline" expression is used as
the condition of a "while" or "for" loop, then it will be implicitly
assigned to $_. If either a "readline" expression or an explicit
assignment of a "readline" expression to a scalar is used as a
"while"/"for" condition, then the condition actually tests for
definedness of the expression's value, not for its regular truth
value.
readlink EXPR
readlink
Returns the value of a symbolic link, if symbolic links are
implemented. If not, raises an exception. If there is a system
error, returns the undefined value and sets $! (errno). If EXPR is
omitted, uses $_.
Portability issues: "readlink" in perlport.
readpipe EXPR
readpipe
EXPR is executed as a system command. The collected standard output
of the command is returned. In scalar context, it comes back as a
single (potentially multi-line) string. In list context, returns a
list of lines (however you've defined lines with $/ (or
$INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR in English)). This is the internal function
implementing the "qx/EXPR/" operator, but you can use it directly.
The "qx/EXPR/" operator is discussed in more detail in
""qx/STRING/"" in perlop. If EXPR is omitted, uses $_.
recv SOCKET,SCALAR,LENGTH,FLAGS
Receives a message on a socket. Attempts to receive LENGTH
characters of data into variable SCALAR from the specified SOCKET
filehandle. SCALAR will be grown or shrunk to the length actually
read. Takes the same flags as the system call of the same name.
Returns the address of the sender if SOCKET's protocol supports
this; returns an empty string otherwise. If there's an error,
returns the undefined value. This call is actually implemented in
terms of the recvfrom(2) system call. See "UDP: Message Passing" in
perlipc for examples.
Note that if the socket has been marked as ":utf8", "recv" will
throw an exception. The :encoding(...) layer implicitly introduces
the ":utf8" layer. See "binmode".
redo LABEL
redo EXPR
redo
The "redo" command restarts the loop block without evaluating the
conditional again. The "continue" block, if any, is not executed.
If the LABEL is omitted, the command refers to the innermost
enclosing loop. The "redo EXPR" form, available starting in Perl
5.18.0, allows a label name to be computed at run time, and is
otherwise identical to "redo LABEL". Programs that want to lie to
themselves about what was just input normally use this command:
# a simpleminded Pascal comment stripper
# (warning: assumes no { or } in strings)
LINE: while (<STDIN>) {
while (s|({.*}.*){.*}|$1 |) {}
s|{.*}| |;
if (s|{.*| |) {
my $front = $_;
while (<STDIN>) {
if (/}/) { # end of comment?
s|^|$front\{|;
redo LINE;
}
}
}
print;
}
"redo" cannot return a value from a block that typically returns a
value, such as "eval {}", "sub {}", or "do {}". It will perform its
flow control behavior, which precludes any return value. It should
not be used to exit a "grep" or "map" operation.
Note that a block by itself is semantically identical to a loop that
executes once. Thus "redo" inside such a block will effectively
turn it into a looping construct.
See also "continue" for an illustration of how "last", "next", and
"redo" work.
Unlike most named operators, this has the same precedence as
assignment. It is also exempt from the looks-like-a-function rule,
so "redo ("foo")."bar"" will cause "bar" to be part of the argument
to "redo".
ref EXPR
ref Examines the value of EXPR, expecting it to be a reference, and
returns a string giving information about the reference and the type
of referent. If EXPR is not specified, $_ will be used.
If the operand is not a reference, then the empty string will be
returned. An empty string will only be returned in this situation.
"ref" is often useful to just test whether a value is a reference,
which can be done by comparing the result to the empty string. It
is a common mistake to use the result of "ref" directly as a truth
value: this goes wrong because 0 (which is false) can be returned
for a reference.
If the operand is a reference to a blessed object, then the name of
the class into which the referent is blessed will be returned.
"ref" doesn't care what the physical type of the referent is;
blessing takes precedence over such concerns. Beware that exact
comparison of "ref" results against a class name doesn't perform a
class membership test: a class's members also include objects
blessed into subclasses, for which "ref" will return the name of the
subclass. Also beware that class names can clash with the built-in
type names (described below).
If the operand is a reference to an unblessed object, then the
return value indicates the type of object. If the unblessed
referent is not a scalar, then the return value will be one of the
strings "ARRAY", "HASH", "CODE", "FORMAT", or "IO", indicating only
which kind of object it is. If the unblessed referent is a scalar,
then the return value will be one of the strings "SCALAR",
"VSTRING", "REF", "GLOB", "LVALUE", or "REGEXP", depending on the
kind of value the scalar currently has. But note that "qr//"
scalars are created already blessed, so "ref qr/.../" will likely
return "Regexp". Beware that these built-in type names can also be
used as class names, so "ref" returning one of these names doesn't
unambiguously indicate that the referent is of the kind to which the
name refers.
The ambiguity between built-in type names and class names
significantly limits the utility of "ref". For unambiguous
information, use Scalar::Util::blessed() for information about
blessing, and Scalar::Util::reftype() for information about physical
types. Use the "isa" method for class membership tests, though one
must be sure of blessedness before attempting a method call.
Alternatively, the "isa" operator can test class membership without
checking blessedness first.
See also perlref and perlobj.
rename OLDNAME,NEWNAME
Changes the name of a file; an existing file NEWNAME will be
clobbered. Returns true for success; on failure returns false and
sets $!.
Behavior of this function varies wildly depending on your system
implementation. For example, it will usually not work across file
system boundaries, even though the system mv command sometimes
compensates for this. Other restrictions include whether it works
on directories, open files, or pre-existing files. Check perlport
and either the rename(2) manpage or equivalent system documentation
for details.
For a platform independent "move" function look at the File::Copy
module.
Portability issues: "rename" in perlport.
require VERSION
require EXPR
require
Demands a version of Perl specified by VERSION, or demands some
semantics specified by EXPR or by $_ if EXPR is not supplied.
VERSION may be either a literal such as v5.24.1, which will be
compared to $^V (or $PERL_VERSION in English), or a numeric argument
of the form 5.024001, which will be compared to $]. An exception is
raised if VERSION is greater than the version of the current Perl
interpreter. Compare with "use", which can do a similar check at
compile time.
Specifying VERSION as a numeric argument of the form 5.024001 should
generally be avoided as older less readable syntax compared to
v5.24.1. Before perl 5.8.0 (released in 2002), the more verbose
numeric form was the only supported syntax, which is why you might
see it in older code.
require v5.24.1; # run time version check
require 5.24.1; # ditto
require 5.024_001; # ditto; older syntax compatible
with perl 5.6
Otherwise, "require" demands that a library file be included if it
hasn't already been included. The file is included via the do-FILE
mechanism, which is essentially just a variety of "eval" with the
caveat that lexical variables in the invoking script will be
invisible to the included code. If it were implemented in pure
Perl, it would have semantics similar to the following:
use Carp 'croak';
use version;
sub require {
my ($filename) = @_;
if ( my $version = eval { version->parse($filename) } ) {
if ( $version > $^V ) {
my $vn = $version->normal;
croak "Perl $vn required--this is only $^V, stopped";
}
return 1;
}
if (exists $INC{$filename}) {
return 1 if $INC{$filename};
croak "Compilation failed in require";
}
local $INC;
# this type of loop lets a hook overwrite $INC if they wish
for($INC = 0; $INC < @INC; $INC++) {
my $prefix = $INC[$INC];
if (!defined $prefix) {
next;
}
if (ref $prefix) {
#... do other stuff - see text below ....
}
# (see text below about possible appending of .pmc
# suffix to $filename)
my $realfilename = "$prefix/$filename";
next if ! -e $realfilename || -d _ || -b _;
$INC{$filename} = $realfilename;
my $result = do($realfilename);
# but run in caller's namespace
if (!defined $result) {
$INC{$filename} = undef;
croak $@ ? "$@Compilation failed in require"
: "Can't locate $filename: $!\n";
}
if (!$result) {
delete $INC{$filename};
croak "$filename did not return true value";
}
$! = 0;
return $result;
}
croak "Can't locate $filename in \@INC ...";
}
Note that the file will not be included twice under the same
specified name.
Historically the file must return true as the last statement to
indicate successful execution of any initialization code, so it's
customary to end such a file with "1;" unless you're sure it'll
return true otherwise. But it's better just to put the "1;", in
case you add more statements. As of 5.37.6 this requirement may be
avoided by enabling the 'module_true' feature, which is enabled by
default in modern version bundles. Thus code with "use v5.37;" no
longer needs to concern itself with this issue. See feature for more
details. Note that this affects the compilation unit within which
the feature is used, and using it before requiring a module will not
change the behavior of existing modules that do not themselves also
use it.
If EXPR is a bareword, "require" assumes a .pm extension and
replaces "::" with "/" in the filename for you, to make it easy to
load standard modules. This form of loading of modules does not
risk altering your namespace, however it will autovivify the stash
for the required module.
In other words, if you try this:
require Foo::Bar; # a splendid bareword
The require function will actually look for the Foo/Bar.pm file in
the directories specified in the @INC array, and it will autovivify
the "Foo::Bar::" stash at compile time.
But if you try this:
my $class = 'Foo::Bar';
require $class; # $class is not a bareword
#or
require "Foo::Bar"; # not a bareword because of the ""
The require function will look for the Foo::Bar file in the @INC
array and will complain about not finding Foo::Bar there. In this
case you can do:
eval "require $class";
or you could do
require "Foo/Bar.pm";
Neither of these forms will autovivify any stashes at compile time
and only have run time effects.
Now that you understand how "require" looks for files with a
bareword argument, there is a little extra functionality going on
behind the scenes. Before "require" looks for a .pm extension, it
will first look for a similar filename with a .pmc extension. If
this file is found, it will be loaded in place of any file ending in
a .pm extension. This applies to both the explicit "require
"Foo/Bar.pm";" form and the "require Foo::Bar;" form.
You can also insert hooks into the import facility by putting Perl
coderefs or objects directly into the @INC array. There are two
types of hooks, INC filters, and INCDIR hooks, and there are three
forms of representing a hook: subroutine references, array
references, and blessed objects.
Subroutine references are the simplest case. When the inclusion
system walks through @INC and encounters a subroutine, unless this
subroutine is blessed and supports an INCDIR hook this subroutine
will be assumed to be an INC hook will be called with two
parameters, the first a reference to itself, and the second the name
of the file to be included (e.g., Foo/Bar.pm). The subroutine
should return either nothing or else a list of up to four values in
the following order:
1. A reference to a scalar, containing any initial source code to
prepend to the file or generator output.
2. A filehandle, from which the file will be read.
3. A reference to a subroutine. If there is no filehandle
(previous item), then this subroutine is expected to generate
one line of source code per call, writing the line into $_ and
returning 1, then finally at end of file returning 0. If there
is a filehandle, then the subroutine will be called to act as a
simple source filter, with the line as read in $_. Again,
return 1 for each valid line, and 0 after all lines have been
returned. For historical reasons the subroutine will receive a
meaningless argument (in fact always the numeric value zero) as
$_[0].
4. Optional state for the subroutine. The state is passed in as
$_[1].
"AUTOLOAD" cannot be used to resolve the "INCDIR" method, "INC" is
checked first, and "AUTOLOAD" would resolve that.
If an empty list, "undef", or nothing that matches the first 3
values above is returned, then "require" looks at the remaining
elements of @INC. Note that this filehandle must be a real
filehandle (strictly a typeglob or reference to a typeglob, whether
blessed or unblessed); tied filehandles will be ignored and
processing will stop there.
If the hook is an object, it should provide an "INC" or "INCDIR"
method that will be called as above, the first parameter being the
object itself. If it does not provide either method, and the object
is not CODE ref then an exception will be thrown, otherwise it will
simply be executed like an unblessed CODE ref would. Note that you
must fully qualify the method name when you declare an "INC" sub
(unlike the "INCDIR" sub), as the unqualified symbol "INC" is always
forced into package "main". Here is a typical code layout for an
"INC" hook:
# In Foo.pm
package Foo;
sub new { ... }
sub Foo::INC {
my ($self, $filename) = @_;
...
}
# In the main program
push @INC, Foo->new(...);
If the hook is an array reference, its first element must be a
subroutine reference or an object as described above. When the first
element is an object that supports an "INC" or "INCDIR" method then
the method will be called with the object as the first argument, the
filename requested as the second, and the hook array reference as
the the third. When the first element is a subroutine then it will
be called with the array as the first argument, and the filename as
the second, no third parameter will be passed in. In both forms you
can modify the contents of the array to provide state between calls,
or whatever you like.
In other words, you can write:
push @INC, \&my_sub;
sub my_sub {
my ($coderef, $filename) = @_; # $coderef is \&my_sub
...
}
or:
push @INC, [ \&my_sub, $x, $y, ... ];
sub my_sub {
my ($arrayref, $filename) = @_;
# Retrieve $x, $y, ...
my (undef, @parameters) = @$arrayref;
...
}
or:
push @INC, [ HookObj->new(), $x, $y, ... ];
sub HookObj::INC {
my ($self, $filename, $arrayref)= @_;
my (undef, @parameters) = @$arrayref;
...
}
These hooks are also permitted to set the %INC entry corresponding
to the files they have loaded. See "%INC" in perlvar. Should an
"INC" hook not do this then perl will set the %INC entry to be the
hook reference itself.
A hook may also be used to rewrite the @INC array. While this might
sound strange, there are situations where it can be very useful to
do this. Such hooks usually just return undef and do not mix
filtering and @INC modifications. While in older versions of perl
having a hook modify @INC was fraught with issues and could even
result in segfaults or assert failures, as of 5.37.7 the logic has
been made much more robust and the hook now has control over the
loop iteration if it wishes to do so.
There is a now a facility to control the iterator for the @INC array
traversal that is performed during require. The $INC variable will
be initialized with the index of the currently executing hook. Once
the hook returns the next slot in @INC that will be checked will be
the integer successor of value in $INC (or -1 if it is undef). For
example the following code
push @INC, sub {
splice @INC, $INC, 1; # remove this hook from @INC
unshift @INC, sub { warn "A" };
undef $INC; # reset the $INC iterator so we
# execute the newly installed sub
# immediately.
};
would install a sub into @INC that when executed as a hook (by for
instance a require of a file that does not exist), the hook will
splice itself out of @INC, and add a new sub to the front that will
warn whenever someone does a require operation that requires an @INC
search, and then immediately execute that hook.
Prior to 5.37.7, there was no way to cause perl to use the newly
installed hook immediately, or to inspect any changed items in @INC
to the left of the iterator, and so the warning would only be
generated on the second call to require. In more recent perl the
presence of the last statement which undefines $INC will cause perl
to restart the traversal of the @INC array at the beginning and
execute the newly installed sub immediately.
Whatever value $INC held, if any, will be restored at the end of the
require. Any changes made to $INC during the lifetime of the hook
will be unrolled after the hook exits, and its value only has
meaning immediately after execution of the hook, thus setting $INC
to some value prior to executing a "require" will have no effect on
how the require executes at all.
As of 5.37.7 @INC values of undef will be silently ignored.
The function require() is difficult to wrap properly. Many modules
consult the stack to find information about their caller, and
injecting a new stack frame by wrapping require() often breaks
things. Nevertheless it can be very helpful to have the ability to
perform actions before and after a "require", for instance for trace
utilities like "Devel::TraceUse" or to measure time to load and the
memory consumption of the require graph. Because of the difficulties
in safely creating a require() wrapper in 5.37.10 we introduced a
new mechanism.
As of 5.37.10, prior to any other actions it performs, "require"
will check if "${^HOOK}{require__before}" contains a coderef, and if
it does it will be called with the filename form of the item being
loaded. The hook may modify $_[0] to load a different filename, or
it may throw a fatal exception to cause the require to fail, which
will be treated as though the required code itself had thrown an
exception.
The "${^HOOK}{require__before}" hook may return a code reference, in
which case the code reference will be executed (in an eval with the
filname as a parameter) after the require completes. It will be
executed regardless of how the compilation completed, and even if
the require throws a fatal exception. The function may consult %INC
to determine if the require failed or not. For instance the
following code will print some diagnostics before and after every
"require" statement. The example also includes logic to chain the
signal, so that multiple signals can cooperate. Well behaved
"${^HOOK}{require__before}" handlers should always take this into
account.
{
use Scalar::Util qw(reftype);
my $old_hook = ${^HOOK}{require__before};
local ${^HOOK}{require__before} = sub {
my ($name) = @_;
my $old_hook_ret;
$old_hook_ret = $old_hook->($name) if $old_hook;
warn "Requiring: $name\n";
return sub {
$old_hook_ret->() if ref($old_hook_ret)
&& reftype($old_hook_ret) eq "CODE";
warn sprintf "Finished requiring %s: %s\n",
$name, $INC{$name} ? "loaded" :"failed";
};
};
require Whatever;
}
This hook executes for ALL "require" statements, unlike "INC" and
"INCDIR" hooks, which are only executed for relative file names, and
it executes first before any other special behaviour inside of
require. Note that the initial hook in "${^HOOK}{require__before}"
is *not* executed inside of an eval, and throwing an exception will
stop further processing, but the after hook it may return is
executed inside of an eval, and any exceptions it throws will be
silently ignored. This is because it executes inside of the scope
cleanup logic that is triggered after the require completes, and an
exception at this time would not stop the module from being loaded,
etc.
There is a similar hook that fires after require completes,
"${^HOOK}{require__after}", which will be called after each require
statement completes, either via an exception or successfully. It
will be called with the filename of the most recently executed
require statement. It is executed in an eval, and will not in any
way affect execution.
For a yet-more-powerful import facility built around "require", see
"use" and perlmod.
reset EXPR
reset
Generally used in a "continue" block at the end of a loop to clear
variables and reset "m?pattern?" searches so that they work again.
The expression is interpreted as a list of single characters
(hyphens allowed for ranges). All variables (scalars, arrays, and
hashes) in the current package beginning with one of those letters
are reset to their pristine state. If the expression is omitted,
one-match searches ("m?pattern?") are reset to match again. Only
resets variables or searches in the current package. Always returns
1. Examples:
reset 'X'; # reset all X variables
reset 'a-z'; # reset lower case variables
reset; # just reset m?one-time? searches
Resetting "A-Z" is not recommended because you'll wipe out your
@ARGV and @INC arrays and your %ENV hash.
Resets only package variables; lexical variables are unaffected, but
they clean themselves up on scope exit anyway, so you'll probably
want to use them instead. See "my".
return EXPR
return
Returns from a subroutine, "eval", "do FILE", "sort" block or regex
eval block (but not a "grep", "map", or "do BLOCK" block) with the
value given in EXPR. Evaluation of EXPR may be in list, scalar, or
void context, depending on how the return value will be used, and
the context may vary from one execution to the next (see
"wantarray"). If no EXPR is given, returns an empty list in list
context, the undefined value in scalar context, and (of course)
nothing at all in void context.
(In the absence of an explicit "return", a subroutine, "eval", or
"do FILE" automatically returns the value of the last expression
evaluated.)
Unlike most named operators, this is also exempt from the looks-
like-a-function rule, so "return ("foo")."bar"" will cause "bar" to
be part of the argument to "return".
reverse LIST
In list context, returns a list value consisting of the elements of
LIST in the opposite order. In scalar context, concatenates the
elements of LIST and returns a string value with all characters in
the opposite order.
print join(", ", reverse "world", "Hello"); # Hello, world
print scalar reverse "dlrow ,", "olleH"; # Hello, world
Used without arguments in scalar context, "reverse" reverses $_.
$_ = "dlrow ,olleH";
print reverse; # No output, list context
print scalar reverse; # Hello, world
Note that reversing an array to itself (as in "@a = reverse @a")
will preserve non-existent elements whenever possible; i.e., for
non-magical arrays or for tied arrays with "EXISTS" and "DELETE"
methods.
This operator is also handy for inverting a hash, although there are
some caveats. If a value is duplicated in the original hash, only
one of those can be represented as a key in the inverted hash.
Also, this has to unwind one hash and build a whole new one, which
may take some time on a large hash, such as from a DBM file.
my %by_name = reverse %by_address; # Invert the hash
rewinddir DIRHANDLE
Sets the current position to the beginning of the directory for the
"readdir" routine on DIRHANDLE.
Portability issues: "rewinddir" in perlport.
rindex STR,SUBSTR,POSITION
rindex STR,SUBSTR
Works just like "index" except that it returns the position of the
last occurrence of SUBSTR in STR. If POSITION is specified, returns
the last occurrence beginning at or before that position.
rmdir FILENAME
rmdir
Deletes the directory specified by FILENAME if that directory is
empty. If it succeeds it returns true; otherwise it returns false
and sets $! (errno). If FILENAME is omitted, uses $_.
To remove a directory tree recursively ("rm -rf" on Unix) look at
the "rmtree" function of the File::Path module.
s///
The substitution operator. See "Regexp Quote-Like Operators" in
perlop.
say FILEHANDLE LIST
say FILEHANDLE
say LIST
say Just like "print", but implicitly appends a newline at the end of
the LIST instead of any value "$\" might have. To use FILEHANDLE
without a LIST to print the contents of $_ to it, you must use a
bareword filehandle like "FH", not an indirect one like $fh.
"say" is available only if the "say" feature is enabled or if it is
prefixed with "CORE::". The "say" feature is enabled automatically
with a "use v5.10" (or higher) declaration in the current scope.
scalar EXPR
Forces EXPR to be interpreted in scalar context and returns the
value of EXPR.
my @counts = ( scalar @a, scalar @b, scalar @c );
There is no equivalent operator to force an expression to be
interpolated in list context because in practice, this is never
needed. If you really wanted to do so, however, you could use the
construction "@{[ (some expression) ]}", but usually a simple "(some
expression)" suffices.
Because "scalar" is a unary operator, if you accidentally use a
parenthesized list for the EXPR, this behaves as a scalar comma
expression, evaluating all but the last element in void context and
returning the final element evaluated in scalar context. This is
seldom what you want.
The following single statement:
print uc(scalar(foo(), $bar)), $baz;
is the moral equivalent of these two:
foo();
print(uc($bar), $baz);
See perlop for more details on unary operators and the comma
operator, and perldata for details on evaluating a hash in scalar
context.
seek FILEHANDLE,POSITION,WHENCE
Sets FILEHANDLE's position, just like the fseek(3) call of C
"stdio". FILEHANDLE may be an expression whose value gives the name
of the filehandle. The values for WHENCE are 0 to set the new
position in bytes to POSITION; 1 to set it to the current position
plus POSITION; and 2 to set it to EOF plus POSITION, typically
negative. For WHENCE you may use the constants "SEEK_SET",
"SEEK_CUR", and "SEEK_END" (start of the file, current position, end
of the file) from the Fcntl module. Returns 1 on success, false
otherwise.
Note the emphasis on bytes: even if the filehandle has been set to
operate on characters (for example using the :encoding(UTF-8) I/O
layer), the "seek", "tell", and "sysseek" family of functions use
byte offsets, not character offsets, because seeking to a character
offset would be very slow in a UTF-8 file.
If you want to position the file for "sysread" or "syswrite", don't
use "seek", because buffering makes its effect on the file's read-
write position unpredictable and non-portable. Use "sysseek"
instead.
Due to the rules and rigors of ANSI C, on some systems you have to
do a seek whenever you switch between reading and writing. Amongst
other things, this may have the effect of calling stdio's
clearerr(3). A WHENCE of 1 ("SEEK_CUR") is useful for not moving
the file position:
seek($fh, 0, 1);
This is also useful for applications emulating "tail -f". Once you
hit EOF on your read and then sleep for a while, you (probably) have
to stick in a dummy "seek" to reset things. The "seek" doesn't
change the position, but it does clear the end-of-file condition on
the handle, so that the next "readline FILE" makes Perl try again to
read something. (We hope.)
If that doesn't work (some I/O implementations are particularly
cantankerous), you might need something like this:
for (;;) {
for ($curpos = tell($fh); $_ = readline($fh);
$curpos = tell($fh)) {
# search for some stuff and put it into files
}
sleep($for_a_while);
seek($fh, $curpos, 0);
}
seekdir DIRHANDLE,POS
Sets the current position for the "readdir" routine on DIRHANDLE.
POS must be a value returned by "telldir". "seekdir" also has the
same caveats about possible directory compaction as the
corresponding system library routine.
select FILEHANDLE
select
Returns the currently selected filehandle. If FILEHANDLE is
supplied, sets the new current default filehandle for output. This
has two effects: first, a "write", "print", or "say" without a
filehandle will default to this FILEHANDLE. Second, references to
variables related to output will refer to this output channel.
For example, to set the top-of-form format for more than one output
channel, you might do the following:
select(REPORT1);
$^ = 'report1_top';
select(REPORT2);
$^ = 'report2_top';
FILEHANDLE may be an expression whose value gives the name of the
actual filehandle. Thus:
my $oldfh = select(STDERR); $| = 1; select($oldfh);
Some programmers may prefer to think of filehandles as objects with
methods, preferring to write the last example as:
STDERR->autoflush(1);
(Prior to Perl version 5.14, you have to "use IO::Handle;"
explicitly first.)
Whilst you can use "select" to temporarily "capture" the output of
"print" like this:
{
my $old_handle = select $new_handle;
# This goes to $new_handle:
print "ok 1\n";
...
select $old_handle;
}
you might find it easier to localize the typeglob instead:
{
local *STDOUT = $new_handle;
print "ok 1\n";
...
}
The two are not exactly equivalent, but the latter might be clearer
and will restore STDOUT if the wrapped code dies. The difference is
that in the former, the original STDOUT can still be accessed by
explicitly using it in a "print" statement (as "print STDOUT ..."),
whereas in the latter the meaning of the STDOUT handle itself has
temporarily been changed.
Portability issues: "select" in perlport.
select RBITS,WBITS,EBITS,TIMEOUT
This calls the select(2) syscall with the bit masks specified, which
can be constructed using "fileno" and "vec", along these lines:
my $rin = my $win = my $ein = '';
vec($rin, fileno(STDIN), 1) = 1;
vec($win, fileno(STDOUT), 1) = 1;
$ein = $rin | $win;
If you want to select on many filehandles, you may wish to write a
subroutine like this:
sub fhbits {
my @fhlist = @_;
my $bits = "";
for my $fh (@fhlist) {
vec($bits, fileno($fh), 1) = 1;
}
return $bits;
}
my $rin = fhbits(\*STDIN, $tty, $mysock);
The usual idiom is:
my ($nfound, $timeleft) =
select(my $rout = $rin, my $wout = $win, my $eout = $ein,
$timeout);
or to block until something becomes ready just do this
my $nfound =
select(my $rout = $rin, my $wout = $win, my $eout = $ein, undef);
Most systems do not bother to return anything useful in $timeleft,
so calling "select" in scalar context just returns $nfound.
Any of the bit masks can also be "undef". The timeout, if
specified, is in seconds, which may be fractional. Note: not all
implementations are capable of returning the $timeleft. If not,
they always return $timeleft equal to the supplied $timeout.
You can effect a sleep of 250 milliseconds this way:
select(undef, undef, undef, 0.25);
Note that whether "select" gets restarted after signals (say,
SIGALRM) is implementation-dependent. See also perlport for notes
on the portability of "select".
On error, "select" behaves just like select(2): it returns -1 and
sets $!.
On some Unixes, select(2) may report a socket file descriptor as
"ready for reading" even when no data is available, and thus any
subsequent "read" would block. This can be avoided if you always
use "O_NONBLOCK" on the socket. See select(2) and fcntl(2) for
further details.
The standard "IO::Select" module provides a user-friendlier
interface to "select", mostly because it does all the bit-mask work
for you.
WARNING: One should not attempt to mix buffered I/O (like "read" or
"readline") with "select", except as permitted by POSIX, and even
then only on POSIX systems. You have to use "sysread" instead.
Portability issues: "select" in perlport.
semctl ID,SEMNUM,CMD,ARG
Calls the System V IPC function semctl(2). You'll probably have to
say
use IPC::SysV;
first to get the correct constant definitions. If CMD is IPC_STAT
or GETALL, then ARG must be a variable that will hold the returned
semid_ds structure or semaphore value array. Returns like "ioctl":
the undefined value for error, ""0 but true"" for zero, or the
actual return value otherwise. The ARG must consist of a vector of
native short integers, which may be created with
"pack("s!",(0)x$nsem)". See also "SysV IPC" in perlipc and the
documentation for "IPC::SysV" and "IPC::Semaphore".
Portability issues: "semctl" in perlport.
semget KEY,NSEMS,FLAGS
Calls the System V IPC function semget(2). Returns the semaphore
id, or the undefined value on error. See also "SysV IPC" in perlipc
and the documentation for "IPC::SysV" and "IPC::Semaphore".
Portability issues: "semget" in perlport.
semop KEY,OPSTRING
Calls the System V IPC function semop(2) for semaphore operations
such as signalling and waiting. OPSTRING must be a packed array of
semop structures. Each semop structure can be generated with
"pack("s!3", $semnum, $semop, $semflag)". The length of OPSTRING
implies the number of semaphore operations. Returns true if
successful, false on error. As an example, the following code waits
on semaphore $semnum of semaphore id $semid:
my $semop = pack("s!3", $semnum, -1, 0);
die "Semaphore trouble: $!\n" unless semop($semid, $semop);
To signal the semaphore, replace -1 with 1. See also "SysV IPC" in
perlipc and the documentation for "IPC::SysV" and "IPC::Semaphore".
Portability issues: "semop" in perlport.
send SOCKET,MSG,FLAGS,TO
send SOCKET,MSG,FLAGS
Sends a message on a socket. Attempts to send the scalar MSG to the
SOCKET filehandle. Takes the same flags as the system call of the
same name. On unconnected sockets, you must specify a destination
to send to, in which case it does a sendto(2) syscall. Returns the
number of characters sent, or the undefined value on error. The
sendmsg(2) syscall is currently unimplemented. See "UDP: Message
Passing" in perlipc for examples.
Note that if the socket has been marked as ":utf8", "send" will
throw an exception. The :encoding(...) layer implicitly introduces
the ":utf8" layer. See "binmode".
setpgrp PID,PGRP
Sets the current process group for the specified PID, 0 for the
current process. Raises an exception when used on a machine that
doesn't implement POSIX setpgid(2) or BSD setpgrp(2). If the
arguments are omitted, it defaults to "0,0". Note that the BSD 4.2
version of "setpgrp" does not accept any arguments, so only
"setpgrp(0,0)" is portable. See also POSIX::setsid().
Portability issues: "setpgrp" in perlport.
setpriority WHICH,WHO,PRIORITY
Sets the current priority for a process, a process group, or a user.
(See setpriority(2).) Raises an exception when used on a machine
that doesn't implement setpriority(2).
"WHICH" can be any of "PRIO_PROCESS", "PRIO_PGRP" or "PRIO_USER"
imported from "RESOURCE CONSTANTS" in POSIX.
Portability issues: "setpriority" in perlport.
setsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME,OPTVAL
Sets the socket option requested. Returns "undef" on error. Use
integer constants provided by the "Socket" module for LEVEL and
OPNAME. Values for LEVEL can also be obtained from getprotobyname.
OPTVAL might either be a packed string or an integer. An integer
OPTVAL is shorthand for pack("i", OPTVAL).
An example disabling Nagle's algorithm on a socket:
use Socket qw(IPPROTO_TCP TCP_NODELAY);
setsockopt($socket, IPPROTO_TCP, TCP_NODELAY, 1);
Portability issues: "setsockopt" in perlport.
shift ARRAY
shift
Removes and returns the first element of an array. This shortens the
array by one and moves everything down.
my @arr = ('cat', 'dog');
my $item = shift(@arr); # 'cat'
# @arr is now ('dog');
Returns "undef" if the array is empty.
Note: "shift" may also return "undef" if the first element in the
array is "undef".
my @arr = (undef, 'two', 'three');
my $item = shift(@arr); # undef
If ARRAY is omitted, "shift" operates on the @ARGV array in the main
program, and the @_ array in subroutines. "shift" will operate on
the @ARGV array in "eval STRING", "BEGIN {}", "INIT {}", "CHECK {}"
blocks.
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowed "shift" to
take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed
unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
See also "unshift", "push", and "pop". "shift" and "unshift" do the
same thing to the left end of an array that "pop" and "push" do to
the right end.
shmctl ID,CMD,ARG
Calls the System V IPC function shmctl. You'll probably have to say
use IPC::SysV;
first to get the correct constant definitions. If CMD is
"IPC_STAT", then ARG must be a variable that will hold the returned
"shmid_ds" structure. Returns like ioctl: "undef" for error; "0 but
true" for zero; and the actual return value otherwise. See also
"SysV IPC" in perlipc and the documentation for "IPC::SysV".
Portability issues: "shmctl" in perlport.
shmget KEY,SIZE,FLAGS
Calls the System V IPC function shmget. Returns the shared memory
segment id, or "undef" on error. See also "SysV IPC" in perlipc and
the documentation for "IPC::SysV".
Portability issues: "shmget" in perlport.
shmread ID,VAR,POS,SIZE
shmwrite ID,STRING,POS,SIZE
Reads or writes the System V shared memory segment ID starting at
position POS for size SIZE by attaching to it, copying in/out, and
detaching from it. When reading, VAR must be a variable that will
hold the data read. When writing, if STRING is too long, only SIZE
bytes are used; if STRING is too short, nulls are written to fill
out SIZE bytes. Return true if successful, false on error.
"shmread" taints the variable. See also "SysV IPC" in perlipc and
the documentation for "IPC::SysV" and the "IPC::Shareable" module
from CPAN.
Portability issues: "shmread" in perlport and "shmwrite" in
perlport.
shutdown SOCKET,HOW
Shuts down a socket connection in the manner indicated by HOW, which
has the same interpretation as in the syscall of the same name.
shutdown($socket, 0); # I/we have stopped reading data
shutdown($socket, 1); # I/we have stopped writing data
shutdown($socket, 2); # I/we have stopped using this socket
This is useful with sockets when you want to tell the other side
you're done writing but not done reading, or vice versa. It's also
a more insistent form of close because it also disables the file
descriptor in any forked copies in other processes.
Returns 1 for success; on error, returns "undef" if the first
argument is not a valid filehandle, or returns 0 and sets $! for any
other failure.
sin EXPR
sin Returns the sine of EXPR (expressed in radians). If EXPR is
omitted, returns sine of $_.
For the inverse sine operation, you may use the "Math::Trig::asin"
function, or use this relation:
sub asin { atan2($_[0], sqrt(1 - $_[0] * $_[0])) }
sleep EXPR
sleep
Causes the script to sleep for (integer) EXPR seconds, or forever if
no argument is given. Returns the integer number of seconds
actually slept.
EXPR should be a positive integer. If called with a negative
integer, "sleep" does not sleep but instead emits a warning, sets $!
("errno"), and returns zero.
If called with a non-integer, the fractional part is ignored.
"sleep 0" is permitted, but a function call to the underlying
platform implementation still occurs, with any side effects that may
have. "sleep 0" is therefore not exactly identical to not sleeping
at all.
May be interrupted if the process receives a signal such as
"SIGALRM".
eval {
local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "Alarm!\n" };
sleep;
};
die $@ unless $@ eq "Alarm!\n";
You probably cannot mix "alarm" and "sleep" calls, because "sleep"
is often implemented using "alarm".
On some older systems, it may sleep up to a full second less than
what you requested, depending on how it counts seconds. Most modern
systems always sleep the full amount. They may appear to sleep
longer than that, however, because your process might not be
scheduled right away in a busy multitasking system.
For delays of finer granularity than one second, the Time::HiRes
module (from CPAN, and starting from Perl 5.8 part of the standard
distribution) provides "usleep". You may also use Perl's four-
argument version of "select" leaving the first three arguments
undefined, or you might be able to use the "syscall" interface to
access setitimer(2) if your system supports it. See perlfaq8 for
details.
See also the POSIX module's "pause" function.
socket SOCKET,DOMAIN,TYPE,PROTOCOL
Opens a socket of the specified kind and attaches it to filehandle
SOCKET. DOMAIN, TYPE, and PROTOCOL are specified the same as for
the syscall of the same name. You should "use Socket" first to get
the proper definitions imported. See the examples in "Sockets:
Client/Server Communication" in perlipc.
On systems that support a close-on-exec flag on files, the flag will
be set for the newly opened file descriptor, as determined by the
value of $^F. See "$^F" in perlvar.
socketpair SOCKET1,SOCKET2,DOMAIN,TYPE,PROTOCOL
Creates an unnamed pair of sockets in the specified domain, of the
specified type. DOMAIN, TYPE, and PROTOCOL are specified the same
as for the syscall of the same name. If unimplemented, raises an
exception. Returns true if successful.
On systems that support a close-on-exec flag on files, the flag will
be set for the newly opened file descriptors, as determined by the
value of $^F. See "$^F" in perlvar.
Some systems define "pipe" in terms of "socketpair", in which a call
to "pipe($rdr, $wtr)" is essentially:
use Socket;
socketpair(my $rdr, my $wtr, AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, PF_UNSPEC);
shutdown($rdr, 1); # no more writing for reader
shutdown($wtr, 0); # no more reading for writer
See perlipc for an example of socketpair use. Perl 5.8 and later
will emulate socketpair using IP sockets to localhost if your system
implements sockets but not socketpair.
Portability issues: "socketpair" in perlport.
sort SUBNAME LIST
sort BLOCK LIST
sort LIST
In list context, this sorts the LIST and returns the sorted list
value. In scalar context, the behaviour of "sort" is undefined.
If SUBNAME or BLOCK is omitted, "sort"s in standard string
comparison order. If SUBNAME is specified, it gives the name of a
subroutine that returns a numeric value less than, equal to, or
greater than 0, depending on how the elements of the list are to be
ordered. (The "<=>" and "cmp" operators are extremely useful in
such routines.) SUBNAME may be a scalar variable name
(unsubscripted), in which case the value provides the name of (or a
reference to) the actual subroutine to use. In place of a SUBNAME,
you can provide a BLOCK as an anonymous, in-line sort subroutine.
If the subroutine's prototype is "($$)", the elements to be compared
are passed by reference in @_, as for a normal subroutine. This is
slower than unprototyped subroutines, where the elements to be
compared are passed into the subroutine as the package global
variables $a and $b (see example below).
If the subroutine is an XSUB, the elements to be compared are pushed
on to the stack, the way arguments are usually passed to XSUBs. $a
and $b are not set.
The values to be compared are always passed by reference and should
not be modified.
You also cannot exit out of the sort block or subroutine using any
of the loop control operators described in perlsyn or with "goto".
When "use locale" (but not "use locale ':not_characters'") is in
effect, "sort LIST" sorts LIST according to the current collation
locale. See perllocale.
"sort" returns aliases into the original list, much as a for loop's
index variable aliases the list elements. That is, modifying an
element of a list returned by "sort" (for example, in a "foreach",
"map" or "grep") actually modifies the element in the original list.
This is usually something to be avoided when writing clear code.
Historically Perl has varied in whether sorting is stable by
default. If stability matters, it can be controlled explicitly by
using the sort pragma.
Examples:
# sort lexically
my @articles = sort @files;
# same thing, but with explicit sort routine
my @articles = sort {$a cmp $b} @files;
# now case-insensitively
my @articles = sort {fc($a) cmp fc($b)} @files;
# same thing in reversed order
my @articles = sort {$b cmp $a} @files;
# sort numerically ascending
my @articles = sort {$a <=> $b} @files;
# sort numerically descending
my @articles = sort {$b <=> $a} @files;
# this sorts the %age hash by value instead of key
# using an in-line function
my @eldest = sort { $age{$b} <=> $age{$a} } keys %age;
# sort using explicit subroutine name
sub byage {
$age{$a} <=> $age{$b}; # presuming numeric
}
my @sortedclass = sort byage @class;
sub backwards { $b cmp $a }
my @harry = qw(dog cat x Cain Abel);
my @george = qw(gone chased yz Punished Axed);
print sort @harry;
# prints AbelCaincatdogx
print sort backwards @harry;
# prints xdogcatCainAbel
print sort @george, 'to', @harry;
# prints AbelAxedCainPunishedcatchaseddoggonetoxyz
# inefficiently sort by descending numeric compare using
# the first integer after the first = sign, or the
# whole record case-insensitively otherwise
my @new = sort {
($b =~ /=(\d+)/)[0] <=> ($a =~ /=(\d+)/)[0]
||
fc($a) cmp fc($b)
} @old;
# same thing, but much more efficiently;
# we'll build auxiliary indices instead
# for speed
my (@nums, @caps);
for (@old) {
push @nums, ( /=(\d+)/ ? $1 : undef );
push @caps, fc($_);
}
my @new = @old[ sort {
$nums[$b] <=> $nums[$a]
||
$caps[$a] cmp $caps[$b]
} 0..$#old
];
# same thing, but without any temps
my @new = map { $_->[0] }
sort { $b->[1] <=> $a->[1]
||
$a->[2] cmp $b->[2]
} map { [$_, /=(\d+)/, fc($_)] } @old;
# using a prototype allows you to use any comparison subroutine
# as a sort subroutine (including other package's subroutines)
package Other;
sub backwards ($$) { $_[1] cmp $_[0]; } # $a and $b are
# not set here
package main;
my @new = sort Other::backwards @old;
## using a prototype with function signature
use feature 'signatures';
sub function_with_signature :prototype($$) ($one, $two) {
return $one <=> $two
}
my @new = sort function_with_signature @old;
# guarantee stability
use sort 'stable';
my @new = sort { substr($a, 3, 5) cmp substr($b, 3, 5) } @old;
Warning: syntactical care is required when sorting the list returned
from a function. If you want to sort the list returned by the
function call find_records(@key), you can use:
my @contact = sort { $a cmp $b } find_records @key;
my @contact = sort +find_records(@key);
my @contact = sort &find_records(@key);
my @contact = sort(find_records(@key));
If instead you want to sort the array @key with the comparison
routine find_records() then you can use:
my @contact = sort { find_records() } @key;
my @contact = sort find_records(@key);
my @contact = sort(find_records @key);
my @contact = sort(find_records (@key));
$a and $b are set as package globals in the package the sort() is
called from. That means $main::a and $main::b (or $::a and $::b) in
the "main" package, $FooPack::a and $FooPack::b in the "FooPack"
package, etc. If the sort block is in scope of a "my" or "state"
declaration of $a and/or $b, you must spell out the full name of the
variables in the sort block :
package main;
my $a = "C"; # DANGER, Will Robinson, DANGER !!!
print sort { $a cmp $b } qw(A C E G B D F H);
# WRONG
sub badlexi { $a cmp $b }
print sort badlexi qw(A C E G B D F H);
# WRONG
# the above prints BACFEDGH or some other incorrect ordering
print sort { $::a cmp $::b } qw(A C E G B D F H);
# OK
print sort { our $a cmp our $b } qw(A C E G B D F H);
# also OK
print sort { our ($a, $b); $a cmp $b } qw(A C E G B D F H);
# also OK
sub lexi { our $a cmp our $b }
print sort lexi qw(A C E G B D F H);
# also OK
# the above print ABCDEFGH
With proper care you may mix package and my (or state) $a and/or $b:
my $a = {
tiny => -2,
small => -1,
normal => 0,
big => 1,
huge => 2
};
say sort { $a->{our $a} <=> $a->{our $b} }
qw{ huge normal tiny small big};
# prints tinysmallnormalbighuge
$a and $b are implicitly local to the sort() execution and regain
their former values upon completing the sort.
Sort subroutines written using $a and $b are bound to their calling
package. It is possible, but of limited interest, to define them in
a different package, since the subroutine must still refer to the
calling package's $a and $b :
package Foo;
sub lexi { $Bar::a cmp $Bar::b }
package Bar;
... sort Foo::lexi ...
Use the prototyped versions (see above) for a more generic
alternative.
The comparison function is required to behave. If it returns
inconsistent results (sometimes saying $x[1] is less than $x[2] and
sometimes saying the opposite, for example) the results are not
well-defined.
Because "<=>" returns "undef" when either operand is "NaN" (not-a-
number), be careful when sorting with a comparison function like "$a
<=> $b" any lists that might contain a "NaN". The following example
takes advantage that "NaN != NaN" to eliminate any "NaN"s from the
input list.
my @result = sort { $a <=> $b } grep { $_ == $_ } @input;
In this version of perl, the "sort" function is implemented via the
mergesort algorithm.
splice ARRAY,OFFSET,LENGTH,LIST
splice ARRAY,OFFSET,LENGTH
splice ARRAY,OFFSET
splice ARRAY
Removes the elements designated by OFFSET and LENGTH from an array,
and replaces them with the elements of LIST, if any. In list
context, returns the elements removed from the array. In scalar
context, returns the last element removed, or "undef" if no elements
are removed. The array grows or shrinks as necessary. If OFFSET is
negative then it starts that far from the end of the array. If
LENGTH is omitted, removes everything from OFFSET onward. If LENGTH
is negative, removes the elements from OFFSET onward except for
-LENGTH elements at the end of the array. If both OFFSET and LENGTH
are omitted, removes everything. If OFFSET is past the end of the
array and a LENGTH was provided, Perl issues a warning, and splices
at the end of the array.
The following equivalences hold (assuming "$#a >= $i" )
push(@a,$x,$y) splice(@a,@a,0,$x,$y)
pop(@a) splice(@a,-1)
shift(@a) splice(@a,0,1)
unshift(@a,$x,$y) splice(@a,0,0,$x,$y)
$a[$i] = $y splice(@a,$i,1,$y)
"splice" can be used, for example, to implement n-ary queue
processing:
sub nary_print {
my $n = shift;
while (my @next_n = splice @_, 0, $n) {
say join q{ -- }, @next_n;
}
}
nary_print(3, qw(a b c d e f g h));
# prints:
# a -- b -- c
# d -- e -- f
# g -- h
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowed "splice" to
take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed
unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
split /PATTERN/,EXPR,LIMIT
split /PATTERN/,EXPR
split /PATTERN/
split
Splits the string EXPR into a list of strings and returns the list
in list context, or the size of the list in scalar context. (Prior
to Perl 5.11, it also overwrote @_ with the list in void and scalar
context. If you target old perls, beware.)
If only PATTERN is given, EXPR defaults to $_.
Anything in EXPR that matches PATTERN is taken to be a separator
that separates the EXPR into substrings (called "fields") that do
not include the separator. Note that a separator may be longer than
one character or even have no characters at all (the empty string,
which is a zero-width match).
The PATTERN need not be constant; an expression may be used to
specify a pattern that varies at runtime.
If PATTERN matches the empty string, the EXPR is split at the match
position (between characters). As an example, the following:
my @x = split(/b/, "abc"); # ("a", "c")
uses the "b" in 'abc' as a separator to produce the list ("a", "c").
However, this:
my @x = split(//, "abc"); # ("a", "b", "c")
uses empty string matches as separators; thus, the empty string may
be used to split EXPR into a list of its component characters.
As a special case for "split", the empty pattern given in match
operator syntax ("//") specifically matches the empty string, which
is contrary to its usual interpretation as the last successful
match.
If PATTERN is "/^/", then it is treated as if it used the multiline
modifier ("/^/m"), since it isn't much use otherwise.
"/m" and any of the other pattern modifiers valid for "qr"
(summarized in "qr/STRING/msixpodualn" in perlop) may be specified
explicitly.
As another special case, "split" emulates the default behavior of
the command line tool awk when the PATTERN is either omitted or a
string composed of a single space character (such as ' ' or "\x20",
but not e.g. "/ /"). In this case, any leading whitespace in EXPR
is removed before splitting occurs, and the PATTERN is instead
treated as if it were "/\s+/"; in particular, this means that any
contiguous whitespace (not just a single space character) is used as
a separator.
my @x = split(" ", " Quick brown fox\n");
# ("Quick", "brown", "fox")
my @x = split(" ", "RED\tGREEN\tBLUE");
# ("RED", "GREEN", "BLUE")
Using split in this fashion is very similar to how "qw//" works.
However, this special treatment can be avoided by specifying the
pattern "/ /" instead of the string " ", thereby allowing only a
single space character to be a separator. In earlier Perls this
special case was restricted to the use of a plain " " as the pattern
argument to split; in Perl 5.18.0 and later this special case is
triggered by any expression which evaluates to the simple string
" ".
As of Perl 5.28, this special-cased whitespace splitting works as
expected in the scope of "use feature 'unicode_strings'". In
previous versions, and outside the scope of that feature, it
exhibits "The "Unicode Bug"" in perlunicode: characters that are
whitespace according to Unicode rules but not according to ASCII
rules can be treated as part of fields rather than as field
separators, depending on the string's internal encoding.
As of Perl 5.39.9 the "/x" default modifier does NOT affect "split
STRING" but does affect "split PATTERN", this means that "split " ""
will produces the expected awk emulation regardless as to whether it
is used in the scope of a "use re "/x"" statement. If you want to
split by spaces under "use re "/x"" you must do something like
"split /(?-x: )/" or "split /\x{20}/" instead of "split / /".
If omitted, PATTERN defaults to a single space, " ", triggering the
previously described awk emulation.
If LIMIT is specified and positive, it represents the maximum number
of fields into which the EXPR may be split; in other words, LIMIT is
one greater than the maximum number of times EXPR may be split.
Thus, the LIMIT value 1 means that EXPR may be split a maximum of
zero times, producing a maximum of one field (namely, the entire
value of EXPR). For instance:
my @x = split(/,/, "a,b,c", 1); # ("a,b,c")
my @x = split(/,/, "a,b,c", 2); # ("a", "b,c")
my @x = split(/,/, "a,b,c", 3); # ("a", "b", "c")
my @x = split(/,/, "a,b,c", 4); # ("a", "b", "c")
If LIMIT is negative, it is treated as if it were instead
arbitrarily large; as many fields as possible are produced.
If LIMIT is omitted (or, equivalently, zero), then it is usually
treated as if it were instead negative but with the exception that
trailing empty fields are stripped (empty leading fields are always
preserved); if all fields are empty, then all fields are considered
to be trailing (and are thus stripped in this case). Thus, the
following:
my @x = split(/,/, "a,b,c,,,"); # ("a", "b", "c")
produces only a three element list.
my @x = split(/,/, "a,b,c,,,", -1); # ("a", "b", "c", "", "", "")
produces a six element list.
In time-critical applications, it is worthwhile to avoid splitting
into more fields than necessary. Thus, when assigning to a list, if
LIMIT is omitted (or zero), then LIMIT is treated as though it were
one larger than the number of variables in the list; for the
following, LIMIT is implicitly 3:
my ($login, $passwd) = split(/:/);
Note that splitting an EXPR that evaluates to the empty string
always produces zero fields, regardless of the LIMIT specified.
An empty leading field is produced when there is a positive-width
match at the beginning of EXPR. For instance:
my @x = split(/ /, " abc"); # ("", "abc")
splits into two elements. However, a zero-width match at the
beginning of EXPR never produces an empty field, so that:
my @x = split(//, " abc"); # (" ", "a", "b", "c")
splits into four elements instead of five.
An empty trailing field, on the other hand, is produced when there
is a match at the end of EXPR, regardless of the length of the match
(of course, unless a non-zero LIMIT is given explicitly, such fields
are removed, as in the last example). Thus:
my @x = split(//, " abc", -1); # (" ", "a", "b", "c", "")
If the PATTERN contains capturing groups, then for each separator,
an additional field is produced for each substring captured by a
group (in the order in which the groups are specified, as per
backreferences); if any group does not match, then it captures the
"undef" value instead of a substring. Also, note that any such
additional field is produced whenever there is a separator (that is,
whenever a split occurs), and such an additional field does not
count towards the LIMIT. Consider the following expressions
evaluated in list context (each returned list is provided in the
associated comment):
my @x = split(/-|,/ , "1-10,20", 3);
# ("1", "10", "20")
my @x = split(/(-|,)/ , "1-10,20", 3);
# ("1", "-", "10", ",", "20")
my @x = split(/-|(,)/ , "1-10,20", 3);
# ("1", undef, "10", ",", "20")
my @x = split(/(-)|,/ , "1-10,20", 3);
# ("1", "-", "10", undef, "20")
my @x = split(/(-)|(,)/, "1-10,20", 3);
# ("1", "-", undef, "10", undef, ",", "20")
sprintf FORMAT, LIST
Returns a string formatted by the usual "printf" conventions of the
C library function "sprintf". See below for more details and see
sprintf(3) or printf(3) on your system for an explanation of the
general principles.
For example:
# Format number with up to 8 leading zeroes
my $result = sprintf("%08d", $number);
# Round number to 3 digits after decimal point
my $rounded = sprintf("%.3f", $number);
Perl does its own "sprintf" formatting: it emulates the C function
sprintf(3), but doesn't use it except for floating-point numbers,
and even then only standard modifiers are allowed. Non-standard
extensions in your local sprintf(3) are therefore unavailable from
Perl.
Unlike "printf", "sprintf" does not do what you probably mean when
you pass it an array as your first argument. The array is given
scalar context, and instead of using the 0th element of the array as
the format, Perl will use the count of elements in the array as the
format, which is almost never useful.
Perl's "sprintf" permits the following universally-known
conversions:
%% a percent sign
%c a character with the given number
%s a string
%d a signed integer, in decimal
%u an unsigned integer, in decimal
%o an unsigned integer, in octal
%x an unsigned integer, in hexadecimal
%e a floating-point number, in scientific notation
%f a floating-point number, in fixed decimal notation
%g a floating-point number, in %e or %f notation
In addition, Perl permits the following widely-supported
conversions:
%X like %x, but using upper-case letters
%E like %e, but using an upper-case "E"
%G like %g, but with an upper-case "E" (if applicable)
%b an unsigned integer, in binary
%B like %b, but using an upper-case "B" with the # flag
%p a pointer (outputs the Perl value's address in hexadecimal)
%n special: *stores* the number of characters output so far
into the next argument in the parameter list
%a hexadecimal floating point
%A like %a, but using upper-case letters
%i a synonym for %d
%D a synonym for %ld
%U a synonym for %lu
%O a synonym for %lo
%F a synonym for %f
Note that the number of exponent digits in the scientific notation
produced by %e, %E, %g and %G for numbers with the modulus of the
exponent less than 100 is system-dependent: it may be three or less
(zero-padded as necessary). In other words, 1.23 times ten to the
99th may be either "1.23e99" or "1.23e099". Similarly for %a and
%A: the exponent or the hexadecimal digits may float: especially the
"long doubles" Perl configuration option may cause surprises.
Between the "%" and the format letter, you may specify several
additional attributes controlling the interpretation of the format.
In order, these are:
format parameter index
An explicit format parameter index, such as "2$". By default
sprintf will format the next unused argument in the list, but
this allows you to take the arguments out of order:
printf '%2$d %1$d', 12, 34; # prints "34 12"
printf '%3$d %d %1$d', 1, 2, 3; # prints "3 1 1"
flags
one or more of:
space prefix non-negative number with a space
+ prefix non-negative number with a plus sign
- left-justify within the field
0 use zeros, not spaces, to right-justify
# ensure the leading "0" for any octal,
prefix non-zero hexadecimal with "0x" or "0X",
prefix non-zero binary with "0b" or "0B"
For example:
printf '<% d>', 12; # prints "< 12>"
printf '<% d>', 0; # prints "< 0>"
printf '<% d>', -12; # prints "<-12>"
printf '<%+d>', 12; # prints "<+12>"
printf '<%+d>', 0; # prints "<+0>"
printf '<%+d>', -12; # prints "<-12>"
printf '<%6s>', 12; # prints "< 12>"
printf '<%-6s>', 12; # prints "<12 >"
printf '<%06s>', 12; # prints "<000012>"
printf '<%#o>', 12; # prints "<014>"
printf '<%#x>', 12; # prints "<0xc>"
printf '<%#X>', 12; # prints "<0XC>"
printf '<%#b>', 12; # prints "<0b1100>"
printf '<%#B>', 12; # prints "<0B1100>"
When a space and a plus sign are given as the flags at once, the
space is ignored.
printf '<%+ d>', 12; # prints "<+12>"
printf '<% +d>', 12; # prints "<+12>"
When the # flag and a precision are given in the %o conversion,
the precision is incremented if it's necessary for the leading
"0".
printf '<%#.5o>', 012; # prints "<00012>"
printf '<%#.5o>', 012345; # prints "<012345>"
printf '<%#.0o>', 0; # prints "<0>"
vector flag
This flag tells Perl to interpret the supplied string as a
vector of integers, one for each character in the string. Perl
applies the format to each integer in turn, then joins the
resulting strings with a separator (a dot "." by default). This
can be useful for displaying ordinal values of characters in
arbitrary strings:
printf "%vd", "AB\x{100}"; # prints "65.66.256"
printf "version is v%vd\n", $^V; # Perl's version
Put an asterisk "*" before the "v" to override the string to use
to separate the numbers:
printf "address is %*vX\n", ":", $addr; # IPv6 address
printf "bits are %0*v8b\n", " ", $bits; # random bitstring
You can also explicitly specify the argument number to use for
the join string using something like "*2$v"; for example:
printf '%*4$vX %*4$vX %*4$vX', # 3 IPv6 addresses
@addr[1..3], ":";
(minimum) width
Arguments are usually formatted to be only as wide as required
to display the given value. You can override the width by
putting a number here, or get the width from the next argument
(with "*") or from a specified argument (e.g., with "*2$"):
printf "<%s>", "a"; # prints "<a>"
printf "<%6s>", "a"; # prints "< a>"
printf "<%*s>", 6, "a"; # prints "< a>"
printf '<%*2$s>', "a", 6; # prints "< a>"
printf "<%2s>", "long"; # prints "<long>" (does not truncate)
If a field width obtained through "*" is negative, it has the
same effect as the "-" flag: left-justification.
precision, or maximum width
You can specify a precision (for numeric conversions) or a
maximum width (for string conversions) by specifying a "."
followed by a number. For floating-point formats except "g" and
"G", this specifies how many places right of the decimal point
to show (the default being 6). For example:
# these examples are subject to system-specific variation
printf '<%f>', 1; # prints "<1.000000>"
printf '<%.1f>', 1; # prints "<1.0>"
printf '<%.0f>', 1; # prints "<1>"
printf '<%07.2f>', 1.3; # prints "<0001.30>"
printf '<%e>', 10; # prints "<1.000000e+01>"
printf '<%.1e>', 10; # prints "<1.0e+01>"
For "g" and "G", this specifies the maximum number of
significant digits to show; for example:
# These examples are subject to system-specific variation.
printf '<%g>', 1; # prints "<1>"
printf '<%.10g>', 1; # prints "<1>"
printf '<%g>', 100; # prints "<100>"
printf '<%.1g>', 100; # prints "<1e+02>"
printf '<%.2g>', 100.01; # prints "<1e+02>"
printf '<%.5g>', 100.01; # prints "<100.01>"
printf '<%.4g>', 100.01; # prints "<100>"
printf '<%.1g>', 0.0111; # prints "<0.01>"
printf '<%.2g>', 0.0111; # prints "<0.011>"
printf '<%.3g>', 0.0111; # prints "<0.0111>"
For integer conversions, specifying a precision implies that the
output of the number itself should be zero-padded to this width,
where the 0 flag is ignored:
printf '<%.6d>', 1; # prints "<000001>"
printf '<%+.6d>', 1; # prints "<+000001>"
printf '<%-10.6d>', 1; # prints "<000001 >"
printf '<%10.6d>', 1; # prints "< 000001>"
printf '<%010.6d>', 1; # prints "< 000001>"
printf '<%+10.6d>', 1; # prints "< +000001>"
printf '<%.6x>', 1; # prints "<000001>"
printf '<%#.6x>', 1; # prints "<0x000001>"
printf '<%-10.6x>', 1; # prints "<000001 >"
printf '<%10.6x>', 1; # prints "< 000001>"
printf '<%010.6x>', 1; # prints "< 000001>"
printf '<%#10.6x>', 1; # prints "< 0x000001>"
For string conversions, specifying a precision truncates the
string to fit the specified width:
printf '<%.5s>', "truncated"; # prints "<trunc>"
printf '<%10.5s>', "truncated"; # prints "< trunc>"
You can also get the precision from the next argument using
".*", or from a specified argument (e.g., with ".*2$"):
printf '<%.6x>', 1; # prints "<000001>"
printf '<%.*x>', 6, 1; # prints "<000001>"
printf '<%.*2$x>', 1, 6; # prints "<000001>"
printf '<%6.*2$x>', 1, 4; # prints "< 0001>"
If a precision obtained through "*" is negative, it counts as
having no precision at all.
printf '<%.*s>', 7, "string"; # prints "<string>"
printf '<%.*s>', 3, "string"; # prints "<str>"
printf '<%.*s>', 0, "string"; # prints "<>"
printf '<%.*s>', -1, "string"; # prints "<string>"
printf '<%.*d>', 1, 0; # prints "<0>"
printf '<%.*d>', 0, 0; # prints "<>"
printf '<%.*d>', -1, 0; # prints "<0>"
size
For numeric conversions, you can specify the size to interpret
the number as using "l", "h", "V", "q", "L", or "ll". For
integer conversions ("d u o x X b i D U O"), numbers are usually
assumed to be whatever the default integer size is on your
platform (usually 32 or 64 bits), but you can override this to
use instead one of the standard C types, as supported by the
compiler used to build Perl:
hh interpret integer as C type "char" or "unsigned
char" on Perl 5.14 or later
h interpret integer as C type "short" or
"unsigned short"
j interpret integer as C type "intmax_t" on Perl
5.14 or later. Prior to Perl 5.30 this worked only
with a C99 compiler, hence was unportable before
that release.
l interpret integer as C type "long" or
"unsigned long"
q, L, or ll interpret integer as C type "long long",
"unsigned long long", or "quad" (typically
64-bit integers)
t interpret integer as C type "ptrdiff_t" on Perl
5.14 or later
z interpret integer as C types "size_t" or
"ssize_t" on Perl 5.14 or later
Note that, in general, using the "l" modifier (for example, when
writing "%ld" or "%lu" instead of "%d" and "%u") is unnecessary
when used from Perl code. Moreover, it may be harmful, for
example on Windows 64-bit where a long is 32-bits.
As of 5.14, none of these raises an exception if they are not
supported on your platform. However, if warnings are enabled, a
warning of the "printf" warning class is issued on an
unsupported conversion flag. Should you instead prefer an
exception, do this:
use warnings FATAL => "printf";
If you would like to know about a version dependency before you
start running the program, put something like this at its top:
use v5.14; # for hh/j/t/z/ printf modifiers
You can find out whether your Perl supports quads via Config:
use Config;
if ($Config{use64bitint} eq "define"
|| $Config{longsize} >= 8) {
print "Nice quads!\n";
}
For floating-point conversions ("e f g E F G"), numbers are
usually assumed to be the default floating-point size on your
platform (double or long double), but you can force "long
double" with "q", "L", or "ll" if your platform supports them.
You can find out whether your Perl supports long doubles via
Config:
use Config;
print "long doubles\n" if $Config{d_longdbl} eq "define";
You can find out whether Perl considers "long double" to be the
default floating-point size to use on your platform via Config:
use Config;
if ($Config{uselongdouble} eq "define") {
print "long doubles by default\n";
}
It can also be that long doubles and doubles are the same thing:
use Config;
($Config{doublesize} == $Config{longdblsize}) &&
print "doubles are long doubles\n";
The size specifier "V" has no effect for Perl code, but is
supported for compatibility with XS code. It means "use the
standard size for a Perl integer or floating-point number",
which is the default.
order of arguments
Normally, "sprintf" takes the next unused argument as the value
to format for each format specification. If the format
specification uses "*" to require additional arguments, these
are consumed from the argument list in the order they appear in
the format specification before the value to format. Where an
argument is specified by an explicit index, this does not affect
the normal order for the arguments, even when the explicitly
specified index would have been the next argument.
So:
printf "<%*.*s>", $x, $y, $z;
uses $x for the width, $y for the precision, and $z as the value
to format; while:
printf '<%*1$.*s>', $x, $y;
would use $x for the width and precision, and $y as the value to
format.
Here are some more examples; be aware that when using an
explicit index, the "$" may need escaping:
printf "%2\$d %d\n", 12, 34; # will print "34 12\n"
printf "%2\$d %d %d\n", 12, 34; # will print "34 12 34\n"
printf "%3\$d %d %d\n", 12, 34, 56; # will print "56 12 34\n"
printf "%2\$*3\$d %d\n", 12, 34, 3; # will print " 34 12\n"
printf "%*1\$.*f\n", 4, 5, 10; # will print "5.0000\n"
If "use locale" (including "use locale ':not_characters'") is in
effect and "POSIX::setlocale" has been called, the character used
for the decimal separator in formatted floating-point numbers is
affected by the "LC_NUMERIC" locale. See perllocale and POSIX.
sqrt EXPR
sqrt
Return the positive square root of EXPR. If EXPR is omitted, uses
$_. Works only for non-negative operands unless you've loaded the
"Math::Complex" module.
use Math::Complex;
print sqrt(-4); # prints 2i
srand EXPR
srand
Sets and returns the random number seed for the "rand" operator.
The point of the function is to "seed" the "rand" function so that
"rand" can produce a different sequence each time you run your
program. When called with a parameter, "srand" uses that for the
seed; otherwise it (semi-)randomly chooses a seed (see below). In
either case, starting with Perl 5.14, it returns the seed. To
signal that your code will work only on Perls of a recent vintage:
use v5.14; # so srand returns the seed
If "srand" is not called explicitly, it is called implicitly without
a parameter at the first use of the "rand" operator. However, there
are a few situations where programs are likely to want to call
"srand". One is for generating predictable results, generally for
testing or debugging. There, you use srand($seed), with the same
$seed each time. Another case is that you may want to call "srand"
after a "fork" to avoid child processes sharing the same seed value
as the parent (and consequently each other).
Do not call srand() (i.e., without an argument) more than once per
process. The internal state of the random number generator should
contain more entropy than can be provided by any seed, so calling
"srand" again actually loses randomness.
Most implementations of "srand" take an integer and will silently
truncate decimal numbers. This means srand(42) will usually produce
the same results as srand(42.1). To be safe, always pass "srand" an
integer.
A typical use of the returned seed is for a test program which has
too many combinations to test comprehensively in the time available
to it each run. It can test a random subset each time, and should
there be a failure, log the seed used for that run so that it can
later be used to reproduce the same results.
If the "PERL_RAND_SEED" environment variable is set to a non-
negative integer during process startup then calls to srand() with
no arguments will initialize the perl random number generator with a
consistent seed each time it is called, whether called explicitly
with no arguments or implicitly via use of rand(). The exact seeding
that a given "PERL_RAND_SEED" will produce is deliberately
unspecified, but using different values for "PERL_RAND_SEED" should
produce different results. This is intended for debugging and
performance analysis and is only guaranteed to produce consistent
results between invocations of the same perl executable running the
same code when all other factors are equal. The environment variable
is read only once during process startup, and changing it during the
program flow will not affect the currently running process. See
perlrun for more details.
"rand" is not cryptographically secure. You should not rely on it
in security-sensitive situations. As of this writing, a number of
third-party CPAN modules offer random number generators intended by
their authors to be cryptographically secure, including:
Data::Entropy, Crypt::Random, Math::Random::Secure, and
Math::TrulyRandom.
stat FILEHANDLE
stat EXPR
stat DIRHANDLE
stat
Returns a 13-element list giving the status info for a file, either
the file opened via FILEHANDLE or DIRHANDLE, or named by EXPR. If
EXPR is omitted, it stats $_ (not "_"!). Returns the empty list if
"stat" fails. Typically used as follows:
my ($dev,$ino,$mode,$nlink,$uid,$gid,$rdev,$size,
$atime,$mtime,$ctime,$blksize,$blocks)
= stat($filename);
Not all fields are supported on all filesystem types. Here are the
meanings of the fields:
0 dev device number of filesystem
1 ino inode number
2 mode file mode (type and permissions)
3 nlink number of (hard) links to the file
4 uid numeric user ID of file's owner
5 gid numeric group ID of file's owner
6 rdev the device identifier (special files only)
7 size total size of file, in bytes
8 atime last access time in seconds since the epoch
9 mtime last modify time in seconds since the epoch
10 ctime inode change time in seconds since the epoch (*)
11 blksize preferred I/O size in bytes for interacting with the
file (may vary from file to file)
12 blocks actual number of system-specific blocks allocated
on disk (often, but not always, 512 bytes each)
(The epoch was at 00:00 January 1, 1970 GMT.)
(*) Not all fields are supported on all filesystem types. Notably,
the ctime field is non-portable. In particular, you cannot expect
it to be a "creation time"; see "Files and Filesystems" in perlport
for details.
If "stat" is passed the special filehandle consisting of an
underline, no stat is done, but the current contents of the stat
structure from the last "stat", "lstat", or filetest are returned.
Example:
if (-x $file && (($d) = stat(_)) && $d < 0) {
print "$file is executable NFS file\n";
}
(This works on machines only for which the device number is negative
under NFS.)
On some platforms inode numbers are of a type larger than perl knows
how to handle as integer numerical values. If necessary, an inode
number will be returned as a decimal string in order to preserve the
entire value. If used in a numeric context, this will be converted
to a floating-point numerical value, with rounding, a fate that is
best avoided. Therefore, you should prefer to compare inode numbers
using "eq" rather than "==". "eq" will work fine on inode numbers
that are represented numerically, as well as those represented as
strings.
Because the mode contains both the file type and its permissions,
you should mask off the file type portion and (s)printf using a "%o"
if you want to see the real permissions.
my $mode = (stat($filename))[2];
printf "Permissions are %04o\n", $mode & 07777;
In scalar context, "stat" returns a boolean value indicating success
or failure, and, if successful, sets the information associated with
the special filehandle "_".
The File::stat module provides a convenient, by-name access
mechanism:
use File::stat;
my $sb = stat($filename);
printf "File is %s, size is %s, perm %04o, mtime %s\n",
$filename, $sb->size, $sb->mode & 07777,
scalar localtime $sb->mtime;
You can import symbolic mode constants and functions ("S_I*") from
the Fcntl module:
use Fcntl ':mode';
my $mode = (stat($filename))[2];
my $user_rwx = ($mode & S_IRWXU) >> 6;
my $group_read = ($mode & S_IRGRP) >> 3;
my $other_execute = $mode & S_IXOTH;
printf "Permissions are %04o\n", S_IMODE($mode), "\n";
my $is_setuid = $mode & S_ISUID;
my $is_directory = S_ISDIR($mode);
You could write the last two using the "-u" and "-d" operators.
Commonly available "S_I*" constants are:
# Permissions: read, write, execute, for user, group, others.
S_IRWXU S_IRUSR S_IWUSR S_IXUSR
S_IRWXG S_IRGRP S_IWGRP S_IXGRP
S_IRWXO S_IROTH S_IWOTH S_IXOTH
# Setuid/Setgid/Stickiness/SaveText/EnforcedLocks.
# Note that the exact meaning of these is system-dependent.
S_ISUID S_ISGID S_ISVTX S_ISTXT S_ENFMT
# File types. Not all are necessarily available on
# your system.
S_IFREG S_IFDIR S_IFLNK S_IFBLK S_IFCHR
S_IFIFO S_IFSOCK S_IFWHT
# The following are compatibility aliases for S_IRUSR,
# S_IWUSR, and S_IXUSR.
S_IREAD S_IWRITE S_IEXEC
and the "S_I*" functions are
S_IMODE($mode) the part of $mode containing the permission
bits and the setuid/setgid/sticky bits
S_IFMT($mode) the part of $mode containing the file type,
which will match one of the S_IF* constants
(e.g. S_IFMT($mode) == S_IFDIR for directories),
but see the following helper functions
# The operators -f, -d, -l, -b, -c, -p, and -S.
S_ISREG($mode) S_ISDIR($mode) S_ISLNK($mode)
S_ISBLK($mode) S_ISCHR($mode) S_ISFIFO($mode) S_ISSOCK($mode)
# No direct -X operator counterpart, but for the first one
# the -g operator is often equivalent. The ENFMT stands for
# record flocking enforcement, a platform-dependent feature.
S_ISENFMT($mode) S_ISWHT($mode)
See your native chmod(2) and stat(2) documentation for more details
about the "S_I*" constants. To get status info for a symbolic link
instead of the target file behind the link, use the "lstat"
function.
Portability issues: "stat" in perlport.
state VARLIST
state TYPE VARLIST
state VARLIST : ATTRS
state TYPE VARLIST : ATTRS
"state" declares a lexically scoped variable, just like "my".
However, those variables will never be reinitialized, contrary to
lexical variables that are reinitialized each time their enclosing
block is entered. See "Persistent Private Variables" in perlsub for
details.
If more than one variable is listed, the list must be placed in
parentheses. With a parenthesised list, "undef" can be used as a
dummy placeholder. However, since initialization of state variables
in such lists is currently not possible this would serve no purpose.
Like "my", "local", and "our", "state" can operate on a variable
anywhere it appears in an expression (aside from interpolation in
strings). The declaration will not apply to additional uses of the
same variable until the next statement. This means additional uses
of that variable within the same statement will act as they would
have before that declaration occurred, or result in a strict 'vars'
error, as appropriate.
package main;
use feature 'state';
our $x = 2;
foo($x, state $x = $x + 1, $x); # foo() receives (2, 3, 2)
foo($x, $main::x); # foo() receives (3, 2)
Redeclaring a variable in the same scope or statement will "shadow"
the previous declaration, creating a new instance and preventing
access to the previous one. This is usually undesired and, if
warnings are enabled, will result in a warning in the "shadow"
category.
"state" is available only if the "state" feature is enabled or if it
is prefixed with "CORE::". The "state" feature is enabled
automatically with a "use v5.10" (or higher) declaration in the
current scope.
study SCALAR
study
At this time, "study" does nothing. This may change in the future.
Prior to Perl version 5.16, it would create an inverted index of all
characters that occurred in the given SCALAR (or $_ if unspecified).
When matching a pattern, the rarest character from the pattern would
be looked up in this index. Rarity was based on some static
frequency tables constructed from some C programs and English text.
sub NAME BLOCK
sub NAME (PROTO) BLOCK
sub NAME : ATTRS BLOCK
sub NAME (PROTO) : ATTRS BLOCK
This is subroutine definition, not a real function per se. Without
a BLOCK it's just a forward declaration. Without a NAME, it's an
anonymous function declaration, so does return a value: the CODE ref
of the closure just created.
See perlsub and perlref for details about subroutines and
references; see attributes and Attribute::Handlers for more
information about attributes.
__SUB__
A special token that returns a reference to the current subroutine,
or "undef" outside of a subroutine.
The behaviour of "__SUB__" within a regex code block (such as
"/(?{...})/") is subject to change.
This token is only available under "use v5.16" or the "current_sub"
feature. See feature.
substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH,REPLACEMENT
substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH
substr EXPR,OFFSET
Extracts a substring out of EXPR and returns it. First character is
at offset zero. If OFFSET is negative, starts that far back from
the end of the string. If LENGTH is omitted, returns everything
through the end of the string. If LENGTH is negative, leaves that
many characters off the end of the string.
my $s = "The black cat climbed the green tree";
my $color = substr $s, 4, 5; # black
my $middle = substr $s, 4, -11; # black cat climbed the
my $end = substr $s, 14; # climbed the green tree
my $tail = substr $s, -4; # tree
my $z = substr $s, -4, 2; # tr
You can use the "substr" function as an lvalue, in which case EXPR
must itself be an lvalue. If you assign something shorter than
LENGTH, the string will shrink, and if you assign something longer
than LENGTH, the string will grow to accommodate it. To keep the
string the same length, you may need to pad or chop your value using
"sprintf".
If OFFSET and LENGTH specify a substring that is partly outside the
string, only the part within the string is returned. If the
substring is beyond either end of the string, "substr" returns the
undefined value and produces a warning. When used as an lvalue,
specifying a substring that is entirely outside the string raises an
exception. Here's an example showing the behavior for boundary
cases:
my $name = 'fred';
substr($name, 4) = 'dy'; # $name is now 'freddy'
my $null = substr $name, 6, 2; # returns "" (no warning)
my $oops = substr $name, 7; # returns undef, with warning
substr($name, 7) = 'gap'; # raises an exception
An alternative to using "substr" as an lvalue is to specify the
REPLACEMENT string as the 4th argument. This allows you to replace
parts of the EXPR and return what was there before in one operation,
just as you can with "splice".
my $s = "The black cat climbed the green tree";
my $z = substr $s, 14, 7, "jumped from"; # climbed
# $s is now "The black cat jumped from the green tree"
Note that the lvalue returned by the three-argument version of
"substr" acts as a 'magic bullet'; each time it is assigned to, it
remembers which part of the original string is being modified; for
example:
my $x = '1234';
for (substr($x,1,2)) {
$_ = 'a'; print $x,"\n"; # prints 1a4
$_ = 'xyz'; print $x,"\n"; # prints 1xyz4
$x = '56789';
$_ = 'pq'; print $x,"\n"; # prints 5pq9
}
With negative offsets, it remembers its position from the end of the
string when the target string is modified:
my $x = '1234';
for (substr($x, -3, 2)) {
$_ = 'a'; print $x,"\n"; # prints 1a4, as above
$x = 'abcdefg';
print $_,"\n"; # prints f
}
Prior to Perl version 5.10, the result of using an lvalue multiple
times was unspecified. Prior to 5.16, the result with negative
offsets was unspecified.
symlink OLDFILE,NEWFILE
Creates a new filename symbolically linked to the old filename.
Returns 1 for success, 0 otherwise. On systems that don't support
symbolic links, raises an exception. To check for that, use eval:
my $symlink_exists = eval { symlink("",""); 1 };
Portability issues: "symlink" in perlport.
syscall NUMBER, LIST
Calls the system call specified as the first element of the list,
passing the remaining elements as arguments to the system call. If
unimplemented, raises an exception. The arguments are interpreted
as follows: if a given argument is numeric, the argument is passed
as an int. If not, the pointer to the string value is passed. You
are responsible to make sure a string is pre-extended long enough to
receive any result that might be written into a string. You can't
use a string literal (or other read-only string) as an argument to
"syscall" because Perl has to assume that any string pointer might
be written through. If your integer arguments are not literals and
have never been interpreted in a numeric context, you may need to
add 0 to them to force them to look like numbers. This emulates the
"syswrite" function (or vice versa):
require 'syscall.ph'; # may need to run h2ph
my $s = "hi there\n";
syscall(SYS_write(), fileno(STDOUT), $s, length $s);
Note that Perl supports passing of up to only 14 arguments to your
syscall, which in practice should (usually) suffice.
Syscall returns whatever value returned by the system call it calls.
If the system call fails, "syscall" returns -1 and sets $! (errno).
Note that some system calls can legitimately return -1. The proper
way to handle such calls is to assign "$! = 0" before the call, then
check the value of $! if "syscall" returns -1.
There's a problem with "syscall(SYS_pipe())": it returns the file
number of the read end of the pipe it creates, but there is no way
to retrieve the file number of the other end. You can avoid this
problem by using "pipe" instead.
Portability issues: "syscall" in perlport.
sysopen FILEHANDLE,FILENAME,MODE
sysopen FILEHANDLE,FILENAME,MODE,PERMS
Opens the file whose filename is given by FILENAME, and associates
it with FILEHANDLE. If FILEHANDLE is an expression, its value is
used as the real filehandle wanted; an undefined scalar will be
suitably autovivified. This function calls the underlying operating
system's open(2) function with the parameters FILENAME, MODE, and
PERMS.
Returns true on success and "undef" otherwise.
PerlIO layers will be applied to the handle the same way they would
in an "open" call that does not specify layers. That is, the current
value of "${^OPEN}" as set by the open pragma in a lexical scope, or
the "-C" command-line option or "PERL_UNICODE" environment variable
in the main program scope, falling back to the platform defaults as
described in "Defaults and how to override them" in PerlIO. If you
want to remove any layers that may transform the byte stream, use
"binmode" after opening it.
The possible values and flag bits of the MODE parameter are system-
dependent; they are available via the standard module "Fcntl". See
the documentation of your operating system's open(2) syscall to see
which values and flag bits are available. You may combine several
flags using the "|"-operator.
Some of the most common values are "O_RDONLY" for opening the file
in read-only mode, "O_WRONLY" for opening the file in write-only
mode, and "O_RDWR" for opening the file in read-write mode.
For historical reasons, some values work on almost every system
supported by Perl: 0 means read-only, 1 means write-only, and 2
means read/write. We know that these values do not work under
OS/390; you probably don't want to use them in new code.
If the file named by FILENAME does not exist and the "open" call
creates it (typically because MODE includes the "O_CREAT" flag),
then the value of PERMS specifies the permissions of the newly
created file. If you omit the PERMS argument to "sysopen", Perl
uses the octal value 0666. These permission values need to be in
octal, and are modified by your process's current "umask".
In many systems the "O_EXCL" flag is available for opening files in
exclusive mode. This is not locking: exclusiveness means here that
if the file already exists, "sysopen" fails. "O_EXCL" may not work
on network filesystems, and has no effect unless the "O_CREAT" flag
is set as well. Setting "O_CREAT|O_EXCL" prevents the file from
being opened if it is a symbolic link. It does not protect against
symbolic links in the file's path.
Sometimes you may want to truncate an already-existing file. This
can be done using the "O_TRUNC" flag. The behavior of "O_TRUNC"
with "O_RDONLY" is undefined.
You should seldom if ever use 0644 as argument to "sysopen", because
that takes away the user's option to have a more permissive umask.
Better to omit it. See "umask" for more on this.
This function has no direct relation to the usage of "sysread",
"syswrite", or "sysseek". A handle opened with this function can be
used with buffered IO just as one opened with "open" can be used
with unbuffered IO.
Note that under Perls older than 5.8.0, "sysopen" depends on the
fdopen(3) C library function. On many Unix systems, fdopen(3) is
known to fail when file descriptors exceed a certain value,
typically 255. If you need more file descriptors than that,
consider using the "POSIX::open" function. For Perls 5.8.0 and
later, PerlIO is (most often) the default.
See perlopentut for a kinder, gentler explanation of opening files.
Portability issues: "sysopen" in perlport.
sysread FILEHANDLE,SCALAR,LENGTH,OFFSET
sysread FILEHANDLE,SCALAR,LENGTH
Attempts to read LENGTH bytes of data into variable SCALAR from the
specified FILEHANDLE, using read(2). It bypasses any PerlIO layers
including buffered IO (but is affected by the presence of the
":utf8" layer as described later), so mixing this with other kinds
of reads, "print", "write", "seek", "tell", or "eof" can cause
confusion because the ":perlio" or ":crlf" layers usually buffer
data. Returns the number of bytes actually read, 0 at end of file,
or undef if there was an error (in the latter case $! is also set).
SCALAR will be grown or shrunk so that the last byte actually read
is the last byte of the scalar after the read.
An OFFSET may be specified to place the read data at some place in
the string other than the beginning. A negative OFFSET specifies
placement at that many characters counting backwards from the end of
the string. A positive OFFSET greater than the length of SCALAR
results in the string being padded to the required size with "\0"
bytes before the result of the read is appended.
There is no syseof() function, which is ok, since "eof" doesn't work
well on device files (like ttys) anyway. Use "sysread" and check
for a return value of 0 to decide whether you're done.
Note that if the filehandle has been marked as ":utf8", "sysread"
will throw an exception. The :encoding(...) layer implicitly
introduces the ":utf8" layer. See "binmode", "open", and the open
pragma.
sysseek FILEHANDLE,POSITION,WHENCE
Sets FILEHANDLE's system position in bytes using lseek(2).
FILEHANDLE may be an expression whose value gives the name of the
filehandle. The values for WHENCE are 0 to set the new position to
POSITION; 1 to set it to the current position plus POSITION; and 2
to set it to EOF plus POSITION, typically negative.
Note the emphasis on bytes: even if the filehandle has been set to
operate on characters (for example using the :encoding(UTF-8) I/O
layer), the "seek", "tell", and "sysseek" family of functions use
byte offsets, not character offsets, because seeking to a character
offset would be very slow in a UTF-8 file.
"sysseek" bypasses normal buffered IO, so mixing it with reads other
than "sysread" (for example "readline" or "read"), "print", "write",
"seek", "tell", or "eof" may cause confusion.
For WHENCE, you may also use the constants "SEEK_SET", "SEEK_CUR",
and "SEEK_END" (start of the file, current position, end of the
file) from the Fcntl module. Use of the constants is also more
portable than relying on 0, 1, and 2. For example to define a
"systell" function:
use Fcntl 'SEEK_CUR';
sub systell { sysseek($_[0], 0, SEEK_CUR) }
Returns the new position, or the undefined value on failure. A
position of zero is returned as the string "0 but true"; thus
"sysseek" returns true on success and false on failure, yet you can
still easily determine the new position.
system LIST
system PROGRAM LIST
Does exactly the same thing as "exec", except that a fork is done
first and the parent process waits for the child process to exit.
Note that argument processing varies depending on the number of
arguments. If there is more than one argument in LIST, or if LIST
is an array with more than one value, starts the program given by
the first element of the list with arguments given by the rest of
the list. If there is only one scalar argument, the argument is
checked for shell metacharacters, and if there are any, the entire
argument is passed to the system's command shell for parsing (this
is "/bin/sh -c" on Unix platforms, but varies on other platforms).
If there are no shell metacharacters in the argument, it is split
into words and passed directly to "execvp", which is more efficient.
On Windows, only the "system PROGRAM LIST" syntax will reliably
avoid using the shell; "system LIST", even with more than one
element, will fall back to the shell if the first spawn fails.
Perl will attempt to flush all files opened for output before any
operation that may do a fork, but this may not be supported on some
platforms (see perlport). To be safe, you may need to set $|
($AUTOFLUSH in English) or call the "autoflush" method of
"IO::Handle" on any open handles.
The return value is the exit status of the program as returned by
the "wait" call. To get the actual exit value, shift right by eight
(see below). See also "exec". This is not what you want to use to
capture the output from a command; for that you should use merely
backticks or "qx//", as described in "`STRING`" in perlop. Return
value of -1 indicates a failure to start the program or an error of
the wait(2) system call (inspect $! for the reason).
If you'd like to make "system" (and many other bits of Perl) die on
error, have a look at the autodie pragma.
Like "exec", "system" allows you to lie to a program about its name
if you use the "system PROGRAM LIST" syntax. Again, see "exec".
Since "SIGINT" and "SIGQUIT" are ignored during the execution of
"system", if you expect your program to terminate on receipt of
these signals you will need to arrange to do so yourself based on
the return value.
my @args = ("command", "arg1", "arg2");
system(@args) == 0
or die "system @args failed: $?";
If you'd like to manually inspect "system"'s failure, you can check
all possible failure modes by inspecting $? like this:
if ($? == -1) {
print "failed to execute: $!\n";
}
elsif ($? & 127) {
printf "child died with signal %d, %s coredump\n",
($? & 127), ($? & 128) ? 'with' : 'without';
}
else {
printf "child exited with value %d\n", $? >> 8;
}
Alternatively, you may inspect the value of "${^CHILD_ERROR_NATIVE}"
with the "W*()" calls from the POSIX module.
When "system"'s arguments are executed indirectly by the shell,
results and return codes are subject to its quirks. See "`STRING`"
in perlop and "exec" for details.
Since "system" does a "fork" and "wait" it may affect a "SIGCHLD"
handler. See perlipc for details.
Portability issues: "system" in perlport.
syswrite FILEHANDLE,SCALAR,LENGTH,OFFSET
syswrite FILEHANDLE,SCALAR,LENGTH
syswrite FILEHANDLE,SCALAR
Attempts to write LENGTH bytes of data from variable SCALAR to the
specified FILEHANDLE, using write(2). If LENGTH is not specified,
writes whole SCALAR. It bypasses any PerlIO layers including
buffered IO (but is affected by the presence of the ":utf8" layer as
described later), so mixing this with reads (other than "sysread)"),
"print", "write", "seek", "tell", or "eof" may cause confusion
because the ":perlio" and ":crlf" layers usually buffer data.
Returns the number of bytes actually written, or "undef" if there
was an error (in this case the errno variable $! is also set). If
the LENGTH is greater than the data available in the SCALAR after
the OFFSET, only as much data as is available will be written.
An OFFSET may be specified to write the data from some part of the
string other than the beginning. A negative OFFSET specifies
writing that many characters counting backwards from the end of the
string. If SCALAR is of length zero, you can only use an OFFSET of
0.
WARNING: If the filehandle is marked ":utf8", "syswrite" will raise
an exception. The :encoding(...) layer implicitly introduces the
":utf8" layer. Alternately, if the handle is not marked with an
encoding but you attempt to write characters with code points over
255, raises an exception. See "binmode", "open", and the open
pragma.
tell FILEHANDLE
tell
Returns the current position in bytes for FILEHANDLE, or -1 on
error. FILEHANDLE may be an expression whose value gives the name
of the actual filehandle. If FILEHANDLE is omitted, assumes the
file last read.
Note the emphasis on bytes: even if the filehandle has been set to
operate on characters (for example using the :encoding(UTF-8) I/O
layer), the "seek", "tell", and "sysseek" family of functions use
byte offsets, not character offsets, because seeking to a character
offset would be very slow in a UTF-8 file.
The return value of "tell" for the standard streams like the STDIN
depends on the operating system: it may return -1 or something else.
"tell" on pipes, fifos, and sockets usually returns -1.
There is no "systell" function. Use "sysseek($fh, 0, 1)" for that.
Do not use "tell" (or other buffered I/O operations) on a filehandle
that has been manipulated by "sysread", "syswrite", or "sysseek".
Those functions ignore the buffering, while "tell" does not.
telldir DIRHANDLE
Returns the current position of the "readdir" routines on DIRHANDLE.
Value may be given to "seekdir" to access a particular location in a
directory. "telldir" has the same caveats about possible directory
compaction as the corresponding system library routine.
tie VARIABLE,CLASSNAME,LIST
This function binds a variable to a package class that will provide
the implementation for the variable. VARIABLE is the name of the
variable to be enchanted. CLASSNAME is the name of a class
implementing objects of correct type. Any additional arguments are
passed to the appropriate constructor method of the class (meaning
"TIESCALAR", "TIEHANDLE", "TIEARRAY", or "TIEHASH"). Typically
these are arguments such as might be passed to the dbm_open(3)
function of C. The object returned by the constructor is also
returned by the "tie" function, which would be useful if you want to
access other methods in CLASSNAME.
Note that functions such as "keys" and "values" may return huge
lists when used on large objects, like DBM files. You may prefer to
use the "each" function to iterate over such. Example:
# print out history file offsets
use NDBM_File;
tie(my %HIST, 'NDBM_File', '/usr/lib/news/history', 1, 0);
while (my ($key,$val) = each %HIST) {
print $key, ' = ', unpack('L', $val), "\n";
}
A class implementing a hash should have the following methods:
TIEHASH classname, LIST
FETCH this, key
STORE this, key, value
DELETE this, key
CLEAR this
EXISTS this, key
FIRSTKEY this
NEXTKEY this, lastkey
SCALAR this
DESTROY this
UNTIE this
A class implementing an ordinary array should have the following
methods:
TIEARRAY classname, LIST
FETCH this, key
STORE this, key, value
FETCHSIZE this
STORESIZE this, count
CLEAR this
PUSH this, LIST
POP this
SHIFT this
UNSHIFT this, LIST
SPLICE this, offset, length, LIST
EXTEND this, count
DELETE this, key
EXISTS this, key
DESTROY this
UNTIE this
A class implementing a filehandle should have the following methods:
TIEHANDLE classname, LIST
READ this, scalar, length, offset
READLINE this
GETC this
WRITE this, scalar, length, offset
PRINT this, LIST
PRINTF this, format, LIST
BINMODE this
EOF this
FILENO this
SEEK this, position, whence
TELL this
OPEN this, mode, LIST
CLOSE this
DESTROY this
UNTIE this
A class implementing a scalar should have the following methods:
TIESCALAR classname, LIST
FETCH this,
STORE this, value
DESTROY this
UNTIE this
Not all methods indicated above need be implemented. See perltie,
Tie::Hash, Tie::Array, Tie::Scalar, and Tie::Handle.
Unlike "dbmopen", the "tie" function will not "use" or "require" a
module for you; you need to do that explicitly yourself. See
DB_File or the Config module for interesting "tie" implementations.
For further details see perltie, "tied".
tied VARIABLE
Returns a reference to the object underlying VARIABLE (the same
value that was originally returned by the "tie" call that bound the
variable to a package.) Returns the undefined value if VARIABLE
isn't tied to a package.
time
Returns the number of non-leap seconds since whatever time the
system considers to be the epoch, suitable for feeding to "gmtime"
and "localtime". On most systems the epoch is 00:00:00 UTC, January
1, 1970; a prominent exception being Mac OS Classic which uses
00:00:00, January 1, 1904 in the current local time zone for its
epoch.
For measuring time in better granularity than one second, use the
Time::HiRes module from Perl 5.8 onwards (or from CPAN before then),
or, if you have gettimeofday(2), you may be able to use the
"syscall" interface of Perl. See perlfaq8 for details.
For date and time processing look at the many related modules on
CPAN. For a comprehensive date and time representation look at the
DateTime module.
times
Returns a four-element list giving the user and system times in
seconds for this process and any exited children of this process.
my ($user,$system,$cuser,$csystem) = times;
In scalar context, "times" returns $user.
Children's times are only included for terminated children.
Portability issues: "times" in perlport.
tr///
The transliteration operator. Same as "y///". See "Quote-Like
Operators" in perlop.
truncate FILEHANDLE,LENGTH
truncate EXPR,LENGTH
Truncates the file opened on FILEHANDLE, or named by EXPR, to the
specified length. Raises an exception if truncate isn't implemented
on your system. Returns true if successful, "undef" on error.
The behavior is undefined if LENGTH is greater than the length of
the file.
The position in the file of FILEHANDLE is left unchanged. You may
want to call seek before writing to the file.
Portability issues: "truncate" in perlport.
uc EXPR
uc Returns an uppercased version of EXPR. If EXPR is omitted, uses $_.
my $str = uc("Perl is GREAT"); # "PERL IS GREAT"
This function behaves the same way under various pragmas, such as in
a locale, as "lc" does.
If you want titlecase mapping on initial letters see "ucfirst"
instead.
Note: This is the internal function implementing the "\U" escape in
double-quoted strings.
my $str = "Perl is \Ugreat\E"; # "Perl is GREAT"
ucfirst EXPR
ucfirst
Returns the value of EXPR with the first character in uppercase
(Unicode calls this titlecase). If EXPR is omitted, "ucfirst" uses
$_.
my $str = ucfirst("hello world!"); # "Hello world!"
This function behaves the same way under various pragmas, such as in
a locale, as "lc" does.
Note: This is the internal function implementing the "\u" escape in
double-quoted strings.
my $str = "\uperl\E is great"; # "Perl is great"
umask EXPR
umask
Sets the umask for the process to EXPR and returns the previous
value. If EXPR is omitted, merely returns the current umask.
The Unix permission "rwxr-x---" is represented as three sets of
three bits, or three octal digits: 0750 (the leading 0 indicates
octal and isn't one of the digits). The "umask" value is such a
number representing disabled permissions bits. The permission (or
"mode") values you pass "mkdir" or "sysopen" are modified by your
umask, so even if you tell "sysopen" to create a file with
permissions 0777, if your umask is 0022, then the file will actually
be created with permissions 0755. If your "umask" were 0027 (group
can't write; others can't read, write, or execute), then passing
"sysopen" 0666 would create a file with mode 0640 (because "0666 &~
027" is 0640).
Here's some advice: supply a creation mode of 0666 for regular files
(in "sysopen") and one of 0777 for directories (in "mkdir") and
executable files. This gives users the freedom of choice: if they
want protected files, they might choose process umasks of 022, 027,
or even the particularly antisocial mask of 077. Programs should
rarely if ever make policy decisions better left to the user. The
exception to this is when writing files that should be kept private:
mail files, web browser cookies, .rhosts files, and so on.
If umask(2) is not implemented on your system and you are trying to
restrict access for yourself (i.e., "(EXPR & 0700) > 0"), raises an
exception. If umask(2) is not implemented and you are not trying to
restrict access for yourself, returns "undef".
Remember that a umask is a number, usually given in octal; it is not
a string of octal digits. See also "oct", if all you have is a
string.
Portability issues: "umask" in perlport.
undef EXPR
undef
Undefines the value of EXPR, which must be an lvalue. Use only on a
scalar value, an array (using "@"), a hash (using "%"), a subroutine
(using "&"), or a typeglob (using "*"). Saying "undef $hash{$key}"
will probably not do what you expect on most predefined variables or
DBM list values, so don't do that; see "delete". Always returns the
undefined value. You can omit the EXPR, in which case nothing is
undefined, but you still get an undefined value that you could, for
instance, return from a subroutine, assign to a variable, or pass as
a parameter. Examples:
undef $foo;
undef $bar{'blurfl'}; # Compare to: delete $bar{'blurfl'};
undef @ary;
undef %hash;
undef &mysub;
undef *xyz; # destroys $xyz, @xyz, %xyz, &xyz, etc.
return (wantarray ? (undef, $errmsg) : undef) if $they_blew_it;
select undef, undef, undef, 0.25;
my ($x, $y, undef, $z) = foo(); # Ignore third value returned
Note that this is a unary operator, not a list operator.
unlink LIST
unlink
Deletes a list of files. On success, it returns the number of files
it successfully deleted. On failure, it returns false and sets $!
(errno):
my $unlinked = unlink 'a', 'b', 'c';
unlink @goners;
unlink glob "*.bak";
On error, "unlink" will not tell you which files it could not
remove. If you want to know which files you could not remove, try
them one at a time:
foreach my $file ( @goners ) {
unlink $file or warn "Could not unlink $file: $!";
}
Note: "unlink" will not attempt to delete directories unless you are
superuser and the -U flag is supplied to Perl. Even if these
conditions are met, be warned that unlinking a directory can inflict
damage on your filesystem. Finally, using "unlink" on directories
is not supported on many operating systems. Use "rmdir" instead.
If LIST is omitted, "unlink" uses $_.
unpack TEMPLATE,EXPR
unpack TEMPLATE
"unpack" does the reverse of "pack": it takes a string and expands
it out into a list of values. (In scalar context, it returns merely
the first value produced.)
If EXPR is omitted, unpacks the $_ string. See perlpacktut for an
introduction to this function.
The string is broken into chunks described by the TEMPLATE. Each
chunk is converted separately to a value. Typically, either the
string is a result of "pack", or the characters of the string
represent a C structure of some kind.
The TEMPLATE has the same format as in the "pack" function. Here's
a subroutine that does substring:
sub substr {
my ($what, $where, $howmuch) = @_;
unpack("x$where a$howmuch", $what);
}
and then there's
sub ordinal { unpack("W",$_[0]); } # same as ord()
In addition to fields allowed in "pack", you may prefix a field with
a %<number> to indicate that you want a <number>-bit checksum of the
items instead of the items themselves. Default is a 16-bit
checksum. The checksum is calculated by summing numeric values of
expanded values (for string fields the sum of ord($char) is taken;
for bit fields the sum of zeroes and ones).
For example, the following computes the same number as the System V
sum program:
my $checksum = do {
local $/; # slurp!
unpack("%32W*", readline) % 65535;
};
The following efficiently counts the number of set bits in a bit
vector:
my $setbits = unpack("%32b*", $selectmask);
The "p" and "P" formats should be used with care. Since Perl has no
way of checking whether the value passed to "unpack" corresponds to
a valid memory location, passing a pointer value that's not known to
be valid is likely to have disastrous consequences.
If there are more pack codes or if the repeat count of a field or a
group is larger than what the remainder of the input string allows,
the result is not well defined: the repeat count may be decreased,
or "unpack" may produce empty strings or zeros, or it may raise an
exception. If the input string is longer than one described by the
TEMPLATE, the remainder of that input string is ignored.
See "pack" for more examples and notes.
unshift ARRAY,LIST
Add one or more elements to the beginning of an array. This is the
opposite of a "shift".
my @animals = ("cat");
unshift(@animals, "mouse"); # ("mouse", "cat")
my @colors = ("red");
unshift(@colors, ("blue", "green")); # ("blue", "green", "red")
Returns the new number of elements in the updated array.
# Return value is the number of items in the updated array
my $color_count = unshift(@colors, ("yellow", "purple"));
say "There are $color_count colors in the updated array";
Note the LIST is prepended whole, not one element at a time, so the
prepended elements stay in the same order. Use "reverse" to do the
reverse.
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowed "unshift"
to take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed
unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
untie VARIABLE
Breaks the binding between a variable and a package. (See tie.)
Has no effect if the variable is not tied.
use Module VERSION LIST
use Module VERSION
use Module LIST
use Module
Imports some semantics into the current package from the named
module, generally by aliasing certain subroutine or variable names
into your package. It is exactly equivalent to
BEGIN { require Module; Module->import( LIST ); }
except that Module must be a bareword. The importation can be made
conditional by using the if module.
The "BEGIN" forces the "require" and "import" to happen at compile
time. The "require" makes sure the module is loaded into memory if
it hasn't been yet. The "import" is not a builtin; it's just an
ordinary static method call into the "Module" package to tell the
module to import the list of features back into the current package.
The module can implement its "import" method any way it likes,
though most modules just choose to derive their "import" method via
inheritance from the "Exporter" class that is defined in the
"Exporter" module. See Exporter. If no "import" method can be
found, then the call is skipped, even if there is an AUTOLOAD
method.
If you do not want to call the package's "import" method (for
instance, to stop your namespace from being altered), explicitly
supply the empty list:
use Module ();
That is exactly equivalent to
BEGIN { require Module }
If the VERSION argument is present between Module and LIST, then the
"use" will call the "VERSION" method in class Module with the given
version as an argument:
use Module 12.34;
is equivalent to:
BEGIN { require Module; Module->VERSION(12.34) }
The default "VERSION" method, inherited from the "UNIVERSAL" class,
croaks if the given version is larger than the value of the variable
$Module::VERSION.
The VERSION argument cannot be an arbitrary expression. It only
counts as a VERSION argument if it is a version number literal,
starting with either a digit or "v" followed by a digit. Anything
that doesn't look like a version literal will be parsed as the start
of the LIST. Nevertheless, many attempts to use an arbitrary
expression as a VERSION argument will appear to work, because
Exporter's "import" method handles numeric arguments specially,
performing version checks rather than treating them as things to
export.
Again, there is a distinction between omitting LIST ("import" called
with no arguments) and an explicit empty LIST "()" ("import" not
called). Note that there is no comma after VERSION!
Because this is a wide-open interface, pragmas (compiler directives)
are also implemented this way. Some of the currently implemented
pragmas are:
use constant;
use diagnostics;
use integer;
use sigtrap qw(SEGV BUS);
use strict qw(subs vars refs);
use subs qw(afunc blurfl);
use warnings qw(all);
use sort qw(stable);
Some of these pseudo-modules import semantics into the current block
scope (like "strict" or "integer", unlike ordinary modules, which
import symbols into the current package (which are effective through
the end of the file).
Because "use" takes effect at compile time, it doesn't respect the
ordinary flow control of the code being compiled. In particular,
putting a "use" inside the false branch of a conditional doesn't
prevent it from being processed. If a module or pragma only needs
to be loaded conditionally, this can be done using the if pragma:
use if $] < 5.008, "utf8";
use if WANT_WARNINGS, warnings => qw(all);
There's a corresponding "no" declaration that unimports meanings
imported by "use", i.e., it calls "Module->unimport(LIST)" instead
of "import". It behaves just as "import" does with VERSION, an
omitted or empty LIST, or no unimport method being found.
no integer;
no strict 'refs';
no warnings;
See perlmodlib for a list of standard modules and pragmas. See
perlrun for the "-M" and "-m" command-line options to Perl that give
"use" functionality from the command-line.
use VERSION
Lexically enables all features available in the requested version as
defined by the feature pragma, disabling any features not in the
requested version's feature bundle. See feature.
VERSION may be either a v-string such as v5.24.1, which will be
compared to $^V (aka $PERL_VERSION), or a numeric argument of the
form 5.024001, which will be compared to $]. An exception is raised
if VERSION is greater than the version of the current Perl
interpreter; Perl will not attempt to parse the rest of the file.
Compare with "require", which can do a similar check at run time.
If the specified Perl version is 5.12 or higher, strictures are
enabled lexically as with "use strict".
If the specified Perl version is 5.35.0 or higher, warnings are
enabled.
If the specified Perl version is 5.39.0 or higher, builtin functions
are imported lexically as with "use builtin" with a corresponding
version bundle.
Use of "use VERSION" while another is in effect is not allowed with
a "use v5.39;" or greater version. For lower versions, "use
VERSION" will override most behavior of a previous "use VERSION",
possibly removing "warnings" and "feature" effects added by it. This
behavior is deprecated, and a future release of perl will disallow
changing the version once one has been declared. Additionally, a
"use VERSION" with a version less than 5.11 is not allowed after a
"use VERSION" with a version greater than 5.11.
"use VERSION" does not load the feature.pm, strict.pm, warnings.pm
or builtin.pm files, but instead implements the equivalent
functionality directly.
In the current implementation, any explicit use of "no strict"
overrides "use VERSION", even if it comes before it. However, this
may be subject to change in a future release of Perl, so new code
should not rely on this fact. It is recommended that a "use
VERSION" declaration be the first significant statement within a
file (possibly after a "package" statement or any amount of
whitespace or comment), so that its effects happen first, and other
pragmata are applied after it.
Specifying VERSION as a numeric argument of the form 5.024001 should
generally be avoided as older less readable syntax compared to
v5.24.1. Before perl 5.8.0 released in 2002 the more verbose numeric
form was the only supported syntax, which is why you might see it in
older code.
use v5.24.1; # compile time version check
use 5.24.1; # ditto
use 5.024_001; # ditto; older syntax compatible with perl 5.6
This is often useful if you need to check the current Perl version
before "use"ing library modules that won't work with older versions
of Perl. (We try not to do this more than we have to.)
Symmetrically, "no VERSION" allows you to specify that you want a
version of Perl older than the specified one. Historically this was
added during early designs of the Raku language (formerly "Perl 6"),
so that a Perl 5 program could begin
no 6;
to declare that it is not a Perl 6 program. As the two languages
have different implementations, file naming conventions, and other
infrastructure, this feature is now little used in practice and
should be avoided in newly-written code.
Care should be taken when using the "no VERSION" form, as it is only
meant to be used to assert that the running Perl is of a earlier
version than its argument and not to undo the feature-enabling side
effects of "use VERSION".
utime LIST
Changes the access and modification times on each file of a list of
files. The first two elements of the list must be the NUMERIC
access and modification times, in that order. Returns the number of
files successfully changed. The inode change time of each file is
set to the current time. For example, this code has the same effect
as the Unix touch(1) command when the files already exist and belong
to the user running the program:
#!/usr/bin/perl
my $atime = my $mtime = time;
utime $atime, $mtime, @ARGV;
Since Perl 5.8.0, if the first two elements of the list are "undef",
the utime(2) syscall from your C library is called with a null
second argument. On most systems, this will set the file's access
and modification times to the current time (i.e., equivalent to the
example above) and will work even on files you don't own provided
you have write permission:
for my $file (@ARGV) {
utime(undef, undef, $file)
|| warn "Couldn't touch $file: $!";
}
Under NFS this will use the time of the NFS server, not the time of
the local machine. If there is a time synchronization problem, the
NFS server and local machine will have different times. The Unix
touch(1) command will in fact normally use this form instead of the
one shown in the first example.
Passing only one of the first two elements as "undef" is equivalent
to passing a 0 and will not have the effect described when both are
"undef". This also triggers an uninitialized warning.
On systems that support futimes(2), you may pass filehandles among
the files. On systems that don't support futimes(2), passing
filehandles raises an exception. Filehandles must be passed as
globs or glob references to be recognized; barewords are considered
filenames.
Portability issues: "utime" in perlport.
values HASH
values ARRAY
In list context, returns a list consisting of all the values of the
named hash. In Perl 5.12 or later only, will also return a list of
the values of an array; prior to that release, attempting to use an
array argument will produce a syntax error. In scalar context,
returns the number of values.
Hash entries are returned in an apparently random order. The actual
random order is specific to a given hash; the exact same series of
operations on two hashes may result in a different order for each
hash. Any insertion into the hash may change the order, as will any
deletion, with the exception that the most recent key returned by
"each" or "keys" may be deleted without changing the order. So long
as a given hash is unmodified you may rely on "keys", "values" and
"each" to repeatedly return the same order as each other. See
"Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec for details on why hash
order is randomized. Aside from the guarantees provided here the
exact details of Perl's hash algorithm and the hash traversal order
are subject to change in any release of Perl. Tied hashes may
behave differently to Perl's hashes with respect to changes in order
on insertion and deletion of items.
As a side effect, calling "values" resets the HASH or ARRAY's
internal iterator (see "each") before yielding the values. In
particular, calling "values" in void context resets the iterator
with no other overhead.
Apart from resetting the iterator, "values @array" in list context
is the same as plain @array. (We recommend that you use void
context "keys @array" for this, but reasoned that taking "values
@array" out would require more documentation than leaving it in.)
Note that the values are not copied, which means modifying them will
modify the contents of the hash:
for (values %hash) { s/foo/bar/g } # modifies %hash values
for (@hash{keys %hash}) { s/foo/bar/g } # same
Starting with Perl 5.14, an experimental feature allowed "values" to
take a scalar expression. This experiment has been deemed
unsuccessful, and was removed as of Perl 5.24.
To avoid confusing would-be users of your code who are running
earlier versions of Perl with mysterious syntax errors, put this
sort of thing at the top of your file to signal that your code will
work only on Perls of a recent vintage:
use v5.12; # so keys/values/each work on arrays
See also "keys", "each", and "sort".
vec EXPR,OFFSET,BITS
Treats the string in EXPR as a bit vector made up of elements of
width BITS and returns the value of the element specified by OFFSET
as an unsigned integer. BITS therefore specifies the number of bits
that are reserved for each element in the bit vector. This must be
a power of two from 1 to 32 (or 64, if your platform supports that).
If BITS is 8, "elements" coincide with bytes of the input string.
If BITS is 16 or more, bytes of the input string are grouped into
chunks of size BITS/8, and each group is converted to a number as
with "pack"/"unpack" with big-endian formats "n"/"N" (and
analogously for BITS==64). See "pack" for details.
If bits is 4 or less, the string is broken into bytes, then the bits
of each byte are broken into 8/BITS groups. Bits of a byte are
numbered in a little-endian-ish way, as in 0x01, 0x02, 0x04, 0x08,
0x10, 0x20, 0x40, 0x80. For example, breaking the single input byte
chr(0x36) into two groups gives a list "(0x6, 0x3)"; breaking it
into 4 groups gives "(0x2, 0x1, 0x3, 0x0)".
"vec" may also be assigned to, in which case parentheses are needed
to give the expression the correct precedence as in
vec($image, $max_x * $x + $y, 8) = 3;
If the selected element is outside the string, the value 0 is
returned. If an element off the end of the string is written to,
Perl will first extend the string with sufficiently many zero bytes.
It is an error to try to write off the beginning of the string
(i.e., negative OFFSET).
If the string happens to be encoded as UTF-8 internally (and thus
has the UTF8 flag set), "vec" tries to convert it to use a one-byte-
per-character internal representation. However, if the string
contains characters with values of 256 or higher, a fatal error will
occur.
Strings created with "vec" can also be manipulated with the logical
operators "|", "&", "^", and "~". These operators will assume a bit
vector operation is desired when both operands are strings. See
"Bitwise String Operators" in perlop.
The following code will build up an ASCII string saying
'PerlPerlPerl'. The comments show the string after each step. Note
that this code works in the same way on big-endian or little-endian
machines.
my $foo = '';
vec($foo, 0, 32) = 0x5065726C; # 'Perl'
# $foo eq "Perl" eq "\x50\x65\x72\x6C", 32 bits
print vec($foo, 0, 8); # prints 80 == 0x50 == ord('P')
vec($foo, 2, 16) = 0x5065; # 'PerlPe'
vec($foo, 3, 16) = 0x726C; # 'PerlPerl'
vec($foo, 8, 8) = 0x50; # 'PerlPerlP'
vec($foo, 9, 8) = 0x65; # 'PerlPerlPe'
vec($foo, 20, 4) = 2; # 'PerlPerlPe' . "\x02"
vec($foo, 21, 4) = 7; # 'PerlPerlPer'
# 'r' is "\x72"
vec($foo, 45, 2) = 3; # 'PerlPerlPer' . "\x0c"
vec($foo, 93, 1) = 1; # 'PerlPerlPer' . "\x2c"
vec($foo, 94, 1) = 1; # 'PerlPerlPerl'
# 'l' is "\x6c"
To transform a bit vector into a string or list of 0's and 1's, use
these:
my $bits = unpack("b*", $vector);
my @bits = split(//, unpack("b*", $vector));
If you know the exact length in bits, it can be used in place of the
"*".
Here is an example to illustrate how the bits actually fall in
place:
#!/usr/bin/perl -wl
print <<'EOT';
0 1 2 3
unpack("V",$_) 01234567890123456789012345678901
------------------------------------------------------------------
EOT
for $w (0..3) {
$width = 2**$w;
for ($shift=0; $shift < $width; ++$shift) {
for ($off=0; $off < 32/$width; ++$off) {
$str = pack("B*", "0"x32);
$bits = (1<<$shift);
vec($str, $off, $width) = $bits;
$res = unpack("b*",$str);
$val = unpack("V", $str);
write;
}
}
}
format STDOUT =
vec($_,@#,@#) = @<< == @######### @>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
$off, $width, $bits, $val, $res
.
__END__
Regardless of the machine architecture on which it runs, the example
above should print the following table:
0 1 2 3
unpack("V",$_) 01234567890123456789012345678901
------------------------------------------------------------------
vec($_, 0, 1) = 1 == 1 10000000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 1) = 1 == 2 01000000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 1) = 1 == 4 00100000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 3, 1) = 1 == 8 00010000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 4, 1) = 1 == 16 00001000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 5, 1) = 1 == 32 00000100000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 6, 1) = 1 == 64 00000010000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 7, 1) = 1 == 128 00000001000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 8, 1) = 1 == 256 00000000100000000000000000000000
vec($_, 9, 1) = 1 == 512 00000000010000000000000000000000
vec($_,10, 1) = 1 == 1024 00000000001000000000000000000000
vec($_,11, 1) = 1 == 2048 00000000000100000000000000000000
vec($_,12, 1) = 1 == 4096 00000000000010000000000000000000
vec($_,13, 1) = 1 == 8192 00000000000001000000000000000000
vec($_,14, 1) = 1 == 16384 00000000000000100000000000000000
vec($_,15, 1) = 1 == 32768 00000000000000010000000000000000
vec($_,16, 1) = 1 == 65536 00000000000000001000000000000000
vec($_,17, 1) = 1 == 131072 00000000000000000100000000000000
vec($_,18, 1) = 1 == 262144 00000000000000000010000000000000
vec($_,19, 1) = 1 == 524288 00000000000000000001000000000000
vec($_,20, 1) = 1 == 1048576 00000000000000000000100000000000
vec($_,21, 1) = 1 == 2097152 00000000000000000000010000000000
vec($_,22, 1) = 1 == 4194304 00000000000000000000001000000000
vec($_,23, 1) = 1 == 8388608 00000000000000000000000100000000
vec($_,24, 1) = 1 == 16777216 00000000000000000000000010000000
vec($_,25, 1) = 1 == 33554432 00000000000000000000000001000000
vec($_,26, 1) = 1 == 67108864 00000000000000000000000000100000
vec($_,27, 1) = 1 == 134217728 00000000000000000000000000010000
vec($_,28, 1) = 1 == 268435456 00000000000000000000000000001000
vec($_,29, 1) = 1 == 536870912 00000000000000000000000000000100
vec($_,30, 1) = 1 == 1073741824 00000000000000000000000000000010
vec($_,31, 1) = 1 == 2147483648 00000000000000000000000000000001
vec($_, 0, 2) = 1 == 1 10000000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 2) = 1 == 4 00100000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 2) = 1 == 16 00001000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 3, 2) = 1 == 64 00000010000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 4, 2) = 1 == 256 00000000100000000000000000000000
vec($_, 5, 2) = 1 == 1024 00000000001000000000000000000000
vec($_, 6, 2) = 1 == 4096 00000000000010000000000000000000
vec($_, 7, 2) = 1 == 16384 00000000000000100000000000000000
vec($_, 8, 2) = 1 == 65536 00000000000000001000000000000000
vec($_, 9, 2) = 1 == 262144 00000000000000000010000000000000
vec($_,10, 2) = 1 == 1048576 00000000000000000000100000000000
vec($_,11, 2) = 1 == 4194304 00000000000000000000001000000000
vec($_,12, 2) = 1 == 16777216 00000000000000000000000010000000
vec($_,13, 2) = 1 == 67108864 00000000000000000000000000100000
vec($_,14, 2) = 1 == 268435456 00000000000000000000000000001000
vec($_,15, 2) = 1 == 1073741824 00000000000000000000000000000010
vec($_, 0, 2) = 2 == 2 01000000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 2) = 2 == 8 00010000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 2) = 2 == 32 00000100000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 3, 2) = 2 == 128 00000001000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 4, 2) = 2 == 512 00000000010000000000000000000000
vec($_, 5, 2) = 2 == 2048 00000000000100000000000000000000
vec($_, 6, 2) = 2 == 8192 00000000000001000000000000000000
vec($_, 7, 2) = 2 == 32768 00000000000000010000000000000000
vec($_, 8, 2) = 2 == 131072 00000000000000000100000000000000
vec($_, 9, 2) = 2 == 524288 00000000000000000001000000000000
vec($_,10, 2) = 2 == 2097152 00000000000000000000010000000000
vec($_,11, 2) = 2 == 8388608 00000000000000000000000100000000
vec($_,12, 2) = 2 == 33554432 00000000000000000000000001000000
vec($_,13, 2) = 2 == 134217728 00000000000000000000000000010000
vec($_,14, 2) = 2 == 536870912 00000000000000000000000000000100
vec($_,15, 2) = 2 == 2147483648 00000000000000000000000000000001
vec($_, 0, 4) = 1 == 1 10000000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 4) = 1 == 16 00001000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 4) = 1 == 256 00000000100000000000000000000000
vec($_, 3, 4) = 1 == 4096 00000000000010000000000000000000
vec($_, 4, 4) = 1 == 65536 00000000000000001000000000000000
vec($_, 5, 4) = 1 == 1048576 00000000000000000000100000000000
vec($_, 6, 4) = 1 == 16777216 00000000000000000000000010000000
vec($_, 7, 4) = 1 == 268435456 00000000000000000000000000001000
vec($_, 0, 4) = 2 == 2 01000000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 4) = 2 == 32 00000100000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 4) = 2 == 512 00000000010000000000000000000000
vec($_, 3, 4) = 2 == 8192 00000000000001000000000000000000
vec($_, 4, 4) = 2 == 131072 00000000000000000100000000000000
vec($_, 5, 4) = 2 == 2097152 00000000000000000000010000000000
vec($_, 6, 4) = 2 == 33554432 00000000000000000000000001000000
vec($_, 7, 4) = 2 == 536870912 00000000000000000000000000000100
vec($_, 0, 4) = 4 == 4 00100000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 4) = 4 == 64 00000010000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 4) = 4 == 1024 00000000001000000000000000000000
vec($_, 3, 4) = 4 == 16384 00000000000000100000000000000000
vec($_, 4, 4) = 4 == 262144 00000000000000000010000000000000
vec($_, 5, 4) = 4 == 4194304 00000000000000000000001000000000
vec($_, 6, 4) = 4 == 67108864 00000000000000000000000000100000
vec($_, 7, 4) = 4 == 1073741824 00000000000000000000000000000010
vec($_, 0, 4) = 8 == 8 00010000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 4) = 8 == 128 00000001000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 4) = 8 == 2048 00000000000100000000000000000000
vec($_, 3, 4) = 8 == 32768 00000000000000010000000000000000
vec($_, 4, 4) = 8 == 524288 00000000000000000001000000000000
vec($_, 5, 4) = 8 == 8388608 00000000000000000000000100000000
vec($_, 6, 4) = 8 == 134217728 00000000000000000000000000010000
vec($_, 7, 4) = 8 == 2147483648 00000000000000000000000000000001
vec($_, 0, 8) = 1 == 1 10000000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 8) = 1 == 256 00000000100000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 8) = 1 == 65536 00000000000000001000000000000000
vec($_, 3, 8) = 1 == 16777216 00000000000000000000000010000000
vec($_, 0, 8) = 2 == 2 01000000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 8) = 2 == 512 00000000010000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 8) = 2 == 131072 00000000000000000100000000000000
vec($_, 3, 8) = 2 == 33554432 00000000000000000000000001000000
vec($_, 0, 8) = 4 == 4 00100000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 8) = 4 == 1024 00000000001000000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 8) = 4 == 262144 00000000000000000010000000000000
vec($_, 3, 8) = 4 == 67108864 00000000000000000000000000100000
vec($_, 0, 8) = 8 == 8 00010000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 8) = 8 == 2048 00000000000100000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 8) = 8 == 524288 00000000000000000001000000000000
vec($_, 3, 8) = 8 == 134217728 00000000000000000000000000010000
vec($_, 0, 8) = 16 == 16 00001000000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 8) = 16 == 4096 00000000000010000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 8) = 16 == 1048576 00000000000000000000100000000000
vec($_, 3, 8) = 16 == 268435456 00000000000000000000000000001000
vec($_, 0, 8) = 32 == 32 00000100000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 8) = 32 == 8192 00000000000001000000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 8) = 32 == 2097152 00000000000000000000010000000000
vec($_, 3, 8) = 32 == 536870912 00000000000000000000000000000100
vec($_, 0, 8) = 64 == 64 00000010000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 8) = 64 == 16384 00000000000000100000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 8) = 64 == 4194304 00000000000000000000001000000000
vec($_, 3, 8) = 64 == 1073741824 00000000000000000000000000000010
vec($_, 0, 8) = 128 == 128 00000001000000000000000000000000
vec($_, 1, 8) = 128 == 32768 00000000000000010000000000000000
vec($_, 2, 8) = 128 == 8388608 00000000000000000000000100000000
vec($_, 3, 8) = 128 == 2147483648 00000000000000000000000000000001
wait
Behaves like wait(2) on your system: it waits for a child process to
terminate and returns the pid of the deceased process, or -1 if
there are no child processes. The status is returned in $? and
"${^CHILD_ERROR_NATIVE}". Note that a return value of -1 could mean
that child processes are being automatically reaped, as described in
perlipc.
If you use "wait" in your handler for $SIG{CHLD}, it may
accidentally wait for the child created by "qx" or "system". See
perlipc for details.
Equivalent to "waitpid(-1, 0)".
Portability issues: "wait" in perlport.
waitpid PID,FLAGS
Waits for a particular child process to terminate and returns the
pid of the deceased process, or -1 if there is no such child
process. A non-blocking wait (with WNOHANG in FLAGS) can return 0
if there are child processes matching PID but none have terminated
yet. The status is returned in $? and "${^CHILD_ERROR_NATIVE}".
A PID of 0 indicates to wait for any child process whose process
group ID is equal to that of the current process. A PID of less
than -1 indicates to wait for any child process whose process group
ID is equal to -PID. A PID of -1 indicates to wait for any child
process.
If you say
use POSIX ":sys_wait_h";
my $kid;
do {
$kid = waitpid(-1, WNOHANG);
} while $kid > 0;
or
1 while waitpid(-1, WNOHANG) > 0;
then you can do a non-blocking wait for all pending zombie processes
(see "WAIT" in POSIX). Non-blocking wait is available on machines
supporting either the waitpid(2) or wait4(2) syscalls. However,
waiting for a particular pid with FLAGS of 0 is implemented
everywhere. (Perl emulates the system call by remembering the
status values of processes that have exited but have not been
harvested by the Perl script yet.)
Note that on some systems, a return value of -1 could mean that
child processes are being automatically reaped. See perlipc for
details, and for other examples.
Portability issues: "waitpid" in perlport.
wantarray
Returns true if the context of the currently executing subroutine or
"eval" is looking for a list value. Returns false if the context is
looking for a scalar. Returns the undefined value if the context is
looking for no value (void context).
return unless defined wantarray; # don't bother doing more
my @a = complex_calculation();
return wantarray ? @a : "@a";
"wantarray"'s result is unspecified in the top level of a file, in a
"BEGIN", "UNITCHECK", "CHECK", "INIT" or "END" block, or in a
"DESTROY" method.
This function should have been named wantlist() instead.
warn LIST
Emits a warning, usually by printing it to "STDERR". "warn"
interprets its operand LIST in the same way as "die", but is
slightly different in what it defaults to when LIST is empty or
makes an empty string. If it is empty and $@ already contains an
exception value then that value is used after appending
"\t...caught". If it is empty and $@ is also empty then the string
"Warning: Something's wrong" is used.
By default, the exception derived from the operand LIST is
stringified and printed to "STDERR". This behaviour can be altered
by installing a $SIG{__WARN__} handler. If there is such a handler
then no message is automatically printed; it is the handler's
responsibility to deal with the exception as it sees fit (like, for
instance, converting it into a "die"). Most handlers must therefore
arrange to actually display the warnings that they are not prepared
to deal with, by calling "warn" again in the handler. Note that
this is quite safe and will not produce an endless loop, since
"__WARN__" hooks are not called from inside one.
You will find this behavior is slightly different from that of
$SIG{__DIE__} handlers (which don't suppress the error text, but can
instead call "die" again to change it).
Using a "__WARN__" handler provides a powerful way to silence all
warnings (even the so-called mandatory ones). An example:
# wipe out *all* compile-time warnings
BEGIN { $SIG{'__WARN__'} = sub { warn $_[0] if $DOWARN } }
my $foo = 10;
my $foo = 20; # no warning about duplicate my $foo,
# but hey, you asked for it!
# no compile-time or run-time warnings before here
$DOWARN = 1;
# run-time warnings enabled after here
warn "\$foo is alive and $foo!"; # does show up
See perlvar for details on setting %SIG entries and for more
examples. See the Carp module for other kinds of warnings using its
"carp" and "cluck" functions.
write FILEHANDLE
write EXPR
write
Writes a formatted record (possibly multi-line) to the specified
FILEHANDLE, using the format associated with that file. By default
the format for a file is the one having the same name as the
filehandle, but the format for the current output channel (see the
"select" function) may be set explicitly by assigning the name of
the format to the $~ variable.
Top of form processing is handled automatically: if there is
insufficient room on the current page for the formatted record, the
page is advanced by writing a form feed and a special top-of-page
format is used to format the new page header before the record is
written. By default, the top-of-page format is the name of the
filehandle with "_TOP" appended, or "top" in the current package if
the former does not exist. This would be a problem with
autovivified filehandles, but it may be dynamically set to the
format of your choice by assigning the name to the $^ variable while
that filehandle is selected. The number of lines remaining on the
current page is in variable "$-", which can be set to 0 to force a
new page.
If FILEHANDLE is unspecified, output goes to the current default
output channel, which starts out as STDOUT but may be changed by the
"select" operator. If the FILEHANDLE is an EXPR, then the
expression is evaluated and the resulting string is used to look up
the name of the FILEHANDLE at run time. For more on formats, see
perlform.
Note that write is not the opposite of "read". Unfortunately.
y///
The transliteration operator. Same as "tr///". See "Quote-Like
Operators" in perlop.
Non-function Keywords by Cross-reference
perldata
__DATA__
__END__
These keywords are documented in "Special Literals" in perldata.
perlmod
BEGIN
CHECK
END
INIT
UNITCHECK
These compile phase keywords are documented in "BEGIN, UNITCHECK,
CHECK, INIT and END" in perlmod.
perlobj
DESTROY
This method keyword is documented in "Destructors" in perlobj.
perlop
and
cmp
eq
ge
gt
isa
le
lt
ne
not
or
x
xor These operators are documented in perlop.
perlsub
AUTOLOAD
This keyword is documented in "Autoloading" in perlsub.
perlsyn
else
elsif
for
foreach
if
unless
until
while
These flow-control keywords are documented in "Compound Statements"
in perlsyn.
elseif
The "else if" keyword is spelled "elsif" in Perl. There's no "elif"
or "else if" either. It does parse "elseif", but only to warn you
about not using it.
See the documentation for flow-control keywords in "Compound
Statements" in perlsyn.
default
given
when
These flow-control keywords related to the experimental switch
feature are documented in "Switch Statements" in perlsyn.
try
catch
finally
These flow-control keywords related to the experimental "try"
feature are documented in "Try Catch Exception Handling" in perlsyn.
defer
This flow-control keyword related to the experimental "defer"
feature is documented in "defer blocks" in perlsyn.
ADJUST
This class-related phaser block is documented in perlclass.
perl v5.40.1 2026-08-30 PERLFUNC(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sat Oct 3 08:35:33 CEST 2026.