PPI::Do...nt::File(3)

✨ PPI::Document::File ✨

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for PPI::Document::File — that's part of the PPI::Do...nt::File(3) manual, section 3 of the Perl docs, and it's giving very specific-file energy 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

PPI::Document::File — a Perl Document that lives in one specific file 🗂️✨

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

WARNING: this class is experimental, and it may change without notice. fr fr, no cap — do not build your whole personality on it staying the same 😭

PPI::Document::File hands you a PPI::Document subclass that represents a Perl document stored in a specific named file. like, it's not just a document, it's a document that knows which file it came from. main character with a home address 👑

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🎀 METHODS 🎀

💖 new

my $file = PPI::Document::File->new( 'Module.pm' );

so the new constructor works exactly the same as the regular one, except — and this is the whole vibe — the only param allowed is a file name. that's it. that's the list.

you literally cannot create an "anonymous" PPI::Document::File object, and you cannot create an empty one either. no file, no object, periodt 🙅‍♀️

it returns a shiny new PPI::Document::File object, or undef if something went wrong 💀

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🌈 save

# Save to the file we were loaded from
$file->save;

# Save a copy to somewhere else
$file->save( 'Module2.pm' );

the save method works similarly to the one in the parent PPI::Document class — it saves a copy of the document to a file. same energy, mostly 🫶

but here's the difference with this subclass: if save is not passed any filename, it will save it right back to the file it was loaded from. it remembers where it came from. iconic, honestly ✨

Note: when you save to a different file, that's considered saving a copy. so the value returned by the filename accessor will stay the same and will not change to the new filename. the object's home file does not move, bestie 🏠

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⭐ TO DO ⭐

• May need to overload some methods to forcefully prevent Document objects becoming children of another Node. (yes it's on the list, no it's not done yet 🙈)

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💜 SUPPORT 💜

see the support section in the main module 🫶

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>

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🍓 COPYRIGHT 🍓

Copyright 2001 - 2011 Adam Kennedy.

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

the full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one came from perl v5.42.0, dated 2026-01-17, filed under PPI::Do...nt::File(3) in the User Contributed Perl Documentation. go forth and slay your file-based documents 💅✨🦋