IO::Pipe(3pm)

💖 IO::Pipe(3pm) 💖

okay so this is a page from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, and bestie, it's literally all about pipes. stay with me, it's shorter than it looks and honestly kind of iconic 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

IO::Pipe — it supplies object methods for pipes. that's the whole vibe. 💅

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

okay so here's the first way you might use it — fork yourself a kid and split the pipe between you:

        use IO::Pipe;

        $pipe = IO::Pipe->new();

        if($pid = fork()) { # Parent
            $pipe->reader();

            while(<$pipe>) {
                ...
            }

        }
        elsif(defined $pid) { # Child
            $pipe->writer();

            print $pipe ...
        }

or, alternative route, just hand it a command and let it do the fork for you:

        $pipe = IO::Pipe->new();

        $pipe->reader(qw(ls -l));

        while(<$pipe>) {
            ...
        }

both are valid, both slay, pick whichever fits your situation 🌸

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

IO::Pipe gives you an interface for creating pipes between processes. that's it, that's the whole description, short and sweet, no notes 💜

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🌈 CONSTRUCTOR 🌈

new ( [READER, WRITER] )

so this creates an IO::Pipe, which — plot twist — is a reference to a newly created symbol (check the Symbol package if you're curious, iykyk).

IO::Pipe::new optionally takes two arguments, and those lil guys should be objects blessed into IO::Handle, or a subclass of it. these two objects are what get used for the system call to pipe. ✨

if you give it no arguments at all? then method handles gets called on the new IO::Pipe object instead. no pressure.

these two handles just chill in the array part of the GLOB until you call either reader or writer. they're waiting. patiently. 👑

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💅 METHODS 💅

• reader ([ARGS]) — the object gets re-blessed into a sub-class of IO::Handle and becomes the handle at the reading end of the pipe. and if you pass ARGS? then fork is called and ARGS get passed to exec. go off 🐚
• writer ([ARGS]) — same situation, except this one becomes the handle at the writing end of the pipe. it also gets re-blessed into a sub-class of IO::Handle. and yep, if ARGS are given then fork is called and ARGS are passed to exec. twin behavior, different end 🫶
• handles () — this method gets called during construction by IO::Pipe::new on the newly created IO::Pipe object. it returns an array of two objects blessed into IO::Pipe::End, or a subclass thereof. two lil ends, one for each side 💖

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

IO::Handle — go read that one next, bestie 💀

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Graham Barr. currently maintained by the Perl Porters. please report all bugs at <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues> — they genuinely want to hear from you, no cap 🙈

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⭐ COPYRIGHT ⭐

Copyright (c) 1996-8 Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>. All rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. 🎀

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okay that's the whole page, you ate it up honestly. this was perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-11-03 — go forth and pipe responsibly 🧚💜