Perl6::Say(3pm)

💖 Perl6::Say 💖

okay bestie, real talk — this is the Perl6::Say manual page, and it's literally just print() but it hands you the newline for free. no newline needed, no stress, no "\n" sprinkled everywhere like confetti. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

Perl6::Say — "print()", but no newline needed 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

    # Perl 5 code...

    use Perl6::Say;

    say 'boo';             # same as:  print 'boo', "\n"

    say STDERR 'boo';      # same as:  print STDERR 'boo', "\n"

    STDERR->say('boo');    # same as:  print STDERR 'boo', \n"

    $fh->say('boo');       # same as:  print $fh 'boo', "\n";

    say();                 # same as:  print "$_\n";

    say undef;             # same as:  print "\n";

look at that. gorgeous. no notes. 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

💜 Note for Users of Perl 5.10

bestie, you literally do not need this module. The Perl 6 "say" function is available in Perl 5.10 by saying "use feature 'say';". So this module is of interest only to users of Perl 5.6 and 5.8. periodt. 😌

If you have Perl 5.10 installed, see the 510/ directory in this distribution for some elementary examples of "say" taken from "perldoc feature".

🌈 General

This implements a close simulation of the "say" function in Perl 6, which acts like "print" but automatically appends a newline. no cap. 🔥

Use it just like "print" (except that it only supports the indirect object syntax when the stream is a bareword). That is, assuming the relevant filehandles are open for output, you can use any of these:

    say @data;
    say FH @data;
    FH->say(@data);
    *FH->say(@data);
    (\*FH)->say(@data);
    say $fh, @data;
    $fh->say(@data);

but not any of these:

    say {FH} @data;
    say {*FH} @data;
    say {\*FH} @data;
    say $fh @data;
    say {$fh} @data;

it's giving "so close but not quite" 😭 — the {} forms just aren't the vibe here.

🧚 Additional Permitted Usages

As demonstrated in the test suite accompanying this distribution, "Perl6::Say::say()" can be used in all the following situations.

    $string = q{};
    open FH, ">", \$string;
    say FH qq{Hello World};            # print to a string
    close FH;                          # requires Perl 5.8.0 or later

    use FileHandle;
    $fh = FileHandle->new($file, 'w');
    if (defined $fh) {
        say $fh, qq{Hello World};
        $fh->close;
    }

    use IO::File;
    $fh = IO::File->new($file, 'w');
    if (defined $fh) {
        say $fh, qq{Hello World};
        $fh->close;
    }

    $string = q{};
    open FH, ">", \$string;             # requires Perl 5.8.0 or later
    select(FH);
    say qq{Hello World};
    close FH;

so many ways to say hello. main character energy fr fr. 👑

💅 Interaction with Output Record Separator

In Perl 6, "say @stuff" is exactly equivalent to "Core::print @stuff, "\n"".

That means that a call to "say" appends any output record separator (ORS) after the added newline (though in Perl 6, the ORS is an attribute of the filehandle being used, rather than a global $/ variable).

heads up bestie — newline first, then your ORS. order matters. 🙈

🍓 "IO::Handle::say()"

IO::Handle version 1.27 or later (which, confusingly, is found in IO distribution 1.23 and later) also implements a "say" method. Perl6::Say provides its own "say" method to IO::Handle if "IO::Handle::say" is not available.

🌸 Usage with Older Perls

As noted above, some aspects of "Perl6::Say::say()" will not work with versions of Perl earlier than 5.8.0. This is not due to any problem with this module; it is simply that Perl did not support printing to an in-memory file ("print \$string, "\n";") prior to that point. (Thanks to a CPAN testers report from David Cantrell for identifying this limitation.)

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⚠️ WARNING ⚠️

The syntax and semantics of Perl 6 is still being finalized and consequently is at any time subject to change. That means the same caveat applies to this module. 💀 so like, don't build your whole life on it, yk?

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🎀 DEPENDENCIES 🎀

No dependencies other than on modules included with the Perl core as of version 5.8.0. iconic, honestly. ✨

Some of the files in the test suite accompanying this distribution use non-core CPAN module IO::Capture::Stdout. Tests calling IO::Capture::Stdout methods are enclosed in "SKIP" blocks and so should pose no obstacle to installation of the distribution on systems lacking IO::Capture. (However, the maintainer strongly recommends IO::Capture for developers who write a lot of test code. So please consider installing it!) 🫶

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👑 AUTHOR and MAINTAINER 👑

💜 AUTHOR

Damian Conway (damian@conway.org).

💜 MAINTAINER

Alexandr Ciornii (alexchorny@gmail.com)

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🌈 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 🌈

Thanks to Damian Conway for dreaming this up. Thanks to David A Golden for a close review of the documentation. Thanks to CPAN tester Jost Krieger for reporting an error in my SKIP block count in one test file. 🫶 absolute legends, all of them.

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😭 BUGS AND IRRITATIONS 😭

As far as we can determine, Perl 5 doesn't allow us to create a subroutine that truly acts like "print". That is, one that can simultaneously be used like so:

    say @data;

and like so:

    say {$fh} @data;

Comments, suggestions, and patches welcome. 💌

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📜 COPYRIGHT 📜

Copyright (c) 2004, Damian Conway. All Rights Reserved. This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself.

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and that's the whole page bestie!! 🦋✨ written by perl v5.36.0, dated 2022-10-13, filed under Perl6::Say(3pm) — go forth and say things, you're gonna slay 💅💖