# IO::Scalar

- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- PUBLIC INTERFACE
  - Construction
  - Input and output
  - Seeking/telling and other attributes
- VERSION
- AUTHORS
  - Principal author
  - Other contributors

## NAME

IO::Scalar - IO:: interface for reading/writing a scalar

## SYNOPSIS

If you have any Perl5, you can use the basic OO interface...

        use IO::Scalar;

        ### Open a handle on a string:
        $SH = new IO::Scalar;
        $SH->open(\$somestring);

        ### Open a handle on a string, read it line-by-line, then close it:
        $SH = new IO::Scalar \$somestring;
        while ($_ = $SH->getline) { print "Line: $_" }
        $SH->close;

        ### Open a handle on a string, and slurp in all the lines:
        $SH = new IO::Scalar \$somestring;
        print $SH->getlines;

        ### Open a handle on a string, and append to it:
        $SH = new IO::Scalar \$somestring
        $SH->print("bar\n");        ### will add "bar\n" to the end

        ### Get the current position:
        $pos = $SH->getpos;         ### $SH->tell() also works

        ### Set the current position:
        $SH->setpos($pos);          ### $SH->seek(POS,WHENCE) also works

        ### Open an anonymous temporary scalar:
        $SH = new IO::Scalar;
        $SH->print("Hi there!");
        print "I got: ", ${$SH->sref}, "\n";      ### get at value

If your Perl is 5.004 or later, you can use the TIEHANDLE interface, and read/write scalars just like files:

        use IO::Scalar;

        ### Writing to a scalar...
        my $s;
        tie *OUT, 'IO::Scalar', \$s;
        print OUT "line 1\nline 2\n", "line 3\n";
        print "s is now... $s\n"

        ### Reading and writing an anonymous scalar...
        tie *OUT, 'IO::Scalar';
        print OUT "line 1\nline 2\n", "line 3\n";
        tied(OUT)->seek(0,0);
        while (<OUT>) { print "LINE: ", $_ }

Stringification now works, too!

        my $SH = new IO::Scalar \$somestring;
        $SH->print("Hello, ");
        $SH->print("world!");
        print "I've got: <$SH>\n";

## DESCRIPTION

This class implements objects which behave just like FileHandle (or IO::Handle) objects, except that you may use them to write to (or read from) scalars. They can be tiehandle'd as well.

Basically, this:

        my $s;
        $SH = new IO::Scalar \$s;
        $SH->print("Hel", "lo, ");         # OO style
        $SH->print("world!\n");            # ditto

Or this (if you have 5.004 or later):

        my $s;
        $SH = tie *OUT, 'IO::Scalar', \$s;
        print OUT "Hel", "lo, ";           # non-OO style
        print OUT "world!\n";              # ditto

Or this (if you have 5.004 or later):

        my $s;
        $SH = IO::Scalar->new_tie(\$s);
        $SH->print("Hel", "lo, ");         # OO style...
        print $SH "world!\n";              # ...or non-OO style!

Causes $s to be set to:

        "Hello, world!\n"

## PUBLIC INTERFACE

### Construction

new [ARGS...]
  Class method. Return a new, unattached scalar handle. If any arguments are given, they're sent to open().

open [SCALARREF]
  Instance method. Open the scalar handle on a new scalar, pointed to by SCALARREF. If no SCALARREF is given, a "private" scalar is created to hold the file data.

  Returns the self object on success, undefined on error.

opened
  Instance method. Is the scalar handle opened on something?

close
  Instance method. Disassociate the scalar handle from its underlying scalar. Done automatically on destroy.

### Input and output

flush
  Instance method. No-op, provided for OO compatibility.

getc
  Instance method. Return the next character, or undef if none remain.

getline
  Instance method. Return the next line, or undef on end of string. Can safely be called in an array context. Currently, lines are delimited by "\n".

getlines
  Instance method. Get all remaining lines. It will croak() if accidentally called in a scalar context.

print ARGS...
  Instance method. Print ARGS to the underlying scalar.

  Warning: Currently, this always causes a "seek to the end of the string"; this may change in the future.

read BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
  Instance method. Read some bytes from the scalar. Returns the number of bytes actually read, 0 on end-of-file, undef on error.

write BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
  Instance method. Write some bytes to the scalar.

sysread BUF, LEN, [OFFSET]
  Instance method. Read some bytes from the scalar. Returns the number of bytes actually read, 0 on end-of-file, undef on error.

syswrite BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
  Instance method. Write some bytes to the scalar.

### Seeking/telling and other attributes

autoflush
  Instance method. No-op, provided for OO compatibility.

binmode
  Instance method. No-op, provided for OO compatibility.

clearerr
  Instance method. Clear the error and EOF flags. A no-op.

eof
  Instance method. Are we at end of file?

seek OFFSET, WHENCE
  Instance method. Seek to a given position in the stream.

tell
  Instance method. Return the current position in the stream, as a numeric offset.

setpos POS
  Instance method. Set the current position, using the opaque value returned by `getpos()`.

getpos
  Instance method. Return the current position in the string, as an opaque object.

sref
  Instance method. Return a reference to the underlying scalar.

## VERSION

$Id: Scalar.pm,v 1.122 2000/09/28 06:32:28 eryq Exp $

## AUTHORS

### Principal author

Eryq (eryq@zeegee.com). President, ZeeGee Software Inc (http://www.zeegee.com).

### Other contributors

The full set of contributors always includes the folks mentioned in CHANGE LOG. But just the same, special thanks to the following individuals for their invaluable contributions (if I've forgotten or misspelled your name, please email me!):

Andy Glew, for contributing `getc()`.

Brandon Browning, for suggesting `opened()`.

David Richter, for finding and fixing the bug in `PRINTF()`.

Eric L. Brine, for his offset-using read() and write() implementations.

Richard Jones (rich@annexia.org), for his patches to massively improve the performance of `getline()` and add `sysread` and `syswrite`.