String(3)

🎀 String(3) — IO::String 🎀

okay so this is the IO::String page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation, and it’s literally the String(3) manual. Bestie, if you’ve ever wanted a filehandle that’s actually a string, this is your moment. It’s giving file-interface energy but make it in-core. 💅✨

🎀 NAME 🎀

IO::String — Emulate file interface for in-core strings. That’s the whole read: normal file-style I/O, but the “file” is a string chillin’ in memory. 🧚💖

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

use IO::String;
$io = IO::String->new;
$io = IO::String->new($var);
tie *IO, 'IO::String';

# read data
<$io>;
$io->getline;
read($io, $buf, 100);

# write data
print $io "string\n";
$io->print(@data);
syswrite($io, $buf, 100);

select $io;
printf "Some text %s\n", $str;

# seek
$pos = $io->getpos;
$io->setpos(0);        # rewind
$io->seek(-30, -1);
seek($io, 0, 0);

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The IO::String module provides the IO::File interface for in-core strings. An IO::String object can be attached to a string, and it makes it possible to use the normal file operations for reading or writing data, as well as for seeking to various locations of the string. This is useful when you want to use a library module that only provides an interface to file handles on data that you have in a string variable. 🫶

Little PSA, bestie: perl-5.8 and better has built-in support for "in memory" files, which are set up by passing a reference instead of a filename to the open() call. The reason for using this module is that it makes the code backwards compatible with older versions of Perl. 🦋

The IO::String module provides an interface compatible with IO::File as distributed with IO-1.20, but the following methods are not available:

• new_from_fd
• fdopen
• format_write
• format_page_number
• format_lines_per_page
• format_lines_left
• format_name
• format_top_name

The following methods are specific to the IO::String class: 💖

💅 methods specific to IO::String 💅

• $io = IO::String->new and $io = IO::String->new( $string ) — The constructor returns a newly-created IO::String object. It takes an optional argument, which is the string to read from or write into. If no $string argument is given, then an internal buffer (initially empty) is allocated. The IO::String object returned is tied to itself. This means that you can use most Perl I/O built-ins on it too: readline, <>, getc, print, printf, syswrite, sysread, close. 🫶
• $io->open and $io->open( $string ) — Attaches an existing IO::String object to some other $string, or allocates a new internal buffer (if no argument is given). The position is reset to 0. Slay, fresh start. ✨
• $io->string_ref — Returns a reference to the string that is attached to the IO::String object. Most useful when you let the IO::String create an internal buffer to write into. 🦋
• $io->pad and $io->pad( $char ) — Specifies the padding to use if the string is extended by either the seek() or truncate() methods. It is a single character and defaults to "\0". 🎀
• $io->pos and $io->pos( $newpos ) — Yet another interface for reading and setting the current read/write position within the string (the normal getpos/setpos/tell/seek methods are also available). The pos() method always returns the old position, and if you pass it an argument it sets the new position. There is (deliberately) a difference between the setpos() and seek() methods in that seek() extends the string (with the specified padding) if you go to a location past the end, whereas setpos() just snaps back to the end. If truncate() is used to extend the string, then it works as seek(). 💅

💀 BUGS 💀

🚨 In Perl versions < 5.6, the TIEHANDLE interface was incomplete. If you use such a Perl, then seek(), tell(), eof(), fileno(), binmode() will not do anything on an IO::String handle. See perltie for details. 😭

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

IO::File, IO::Stringy, "open" in perlfunc. Go read those if you want the extended lore. 📚✨

👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright 1998-2005 Gisle Aas.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. So yes, free software, same terms as Perl. Periodt. 💜

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kisses, bestie — this page came from perl v5.42.0, dated 2011-11-18, and it’s the String(3) manual page. 💖✨🫶