SVK::Util(3)

✨ NAME ✨

SVK::Util — utility functions for SVK classes 💖

(also hi, you're reading the User Contributed Perl Documentation version of this page, welcome to the group chat 🫶)

---

📜 SYNOPSIS 📜

    use SVK::Util qw( func1 func2 func3 )

like yes bestie you have to ask for them, they don't just show up 🎀

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so. this is yet another abstraction function set for portable file, buffer and IO handling — and it's been tailored very specifically to SVK's needs. not everybody's needs. SVK's. it knows what it's about 💅

and here's the important bit: no symbols are exported by default. none. zero. nothing. your user module has to specify the exact list of functions to import, periodt. it's giving "you have to earn it" energy 🙈

---

👑 CONSTANTS 👑

🎀 Constant Functions

• IS_WIN32 — a boolean flag that says whether this system is running Microsoft Windows 🪟
• DEFAULT_EDITOR — the default program to invoke for editing buffers: notepad.exe on Win32, and vi otherwise. iconic behaviour, no notes ✨
• TEXT_MODE — the I/O layer for text files: :crlf on Win32, and empty otherwise 🌈
• HAS_SYMLINK — a boolean flag that says whether this system supports symlink() 🔗
• HAS_SVN_MIRROR — a boolean flag that says whether we can successfully load SVN::Mirror 🪞

🦋 Constant Scalars

• $SEP — the native path separator for your platform: \ on dosish platforms, / otherwise 🌿
• $EOL — the end of line marker: \015\012 on Win32, and \012 otherwise 🛬

---

🧚 FUNCTIONS 🧚

💬 User Interactivity

• get_prompt ($prompt, $pattern) — keeps prompting the user for a line of answer over and over, until it actually matches the regular expression pattern. returns the chomped answer line. it will not let you go until you answer correctly, lowkey clingy 🫠
• edit_file ($file_name) — launches the editor so you can edit a file ✏️
• get_buffer_from_editor ($what, $sep, $content, $filename, $anchor, $targets_ref) — XXX Undocumented 💀 literally the source just says that. we know nothing. it's a mystery. respect the mystery 🕵️
• get_encoding — gets the current encoding from locale 🌐
• get_encoder ([$encoding]) — that's it. that's the whole entry in the original, bestie. no description given 🙈
• from_native ($octets, $what, [$encoding]) — again, the original gives no description here 🎀
• to_native ($octets, $what, [$encoding]) — same deal, no description in the original ✨

📂 File Content Manipulation

• read_file ($filename) — reads from a file and returns its content as a single scalar 📖
• write_file ($filename, $content) — writes out content to a file, overwriting existing content if present. yes, it will simply replace what was there. be normal about it 💅
• slurp_fh ($input_fh, $output_fh) — reads all data from the input filehandle and writes them to the output filehandle. the input may also be a scalar, or a reference to a scalar 🥤
• md5_fh ($input_fh) — calculates the MD5 checksum for the data in the input filehandle 🔐
• mimetype ($file) — returns the MIME type for the file, or undef if the MIME database is missing on the system 😭
• mimetype_is_text ($mimetype) — returns whether a MIME type string looks like a text file 📝
• is_binary_file ($filename OR $filehandle) — returns true if the given file or filehandle contains binary data. otherwise, returns false 🤖

🗺️ Path and Filename Handling

• abspath ($path) — returns paths with components in symlink resolved, but keeps the final path even if it's a symlink. returns undef if the base directory does not exist 🚫
• abs_path_noexist ($path) — returns paths with components in symlink resolved, but keeps the final path even if it's a symlink. and unlike abs_path(), it returns a valid value even if the base directory doesn't exist. it does not care. it's built different ✨
• abs2rel ($pathname, $old_basedir, $new_basedir, $sep) — replaces the base directory in the native pathname with another base directory and returns the result 🔁
  • if the pathname is not under $old_basedir, it comes back unmodified, untouched, unbothered 🧘
  • if $new_basedir is an empty string, it removes the old base directory but keeps the leading slash. if $new_basedir is undef, it also removes the leading slash ⚠️
  • by default, the return value of this function will use $SEP as its path separator. setting $sep to / will turn native path separators into / instead 🔄
• catdir (@directories) — concatenates directory names to form a complete path; also removes the trailing slash from the resulting string, unless it is the root directory. root stays root, it's not like other girls 🌳
• catfile (@directories, $pathname) — concatenates one or more directory names and a filename to form a complete path, ending with a filename. if $pathname contains directories, they will be splitted off to the end of @directories ✂️
• catpath ($volume, $directory, $filename) — XXX Undocumented — See File::Spec 📚
• devnull () — returns a file name suitable for reading, and guaranteed to be empty 🕳️
• get_anchor ($need_target, @paths) — returns the (anchor, target) pairs for native path @paths. discards the targets being returned unless $need_target ⚓
• get_depot_anchor ($need_target, @paths) — returns the (anchor, target) pairs for depotpaths @paths. discards the targets being returned unless $need_target 🏬
• catdepot ($depot_name, @paths) — okay so the original literally gives this one no description at all. nothing. blank. it's giving silent main character energy 👑
• make_path ($path) — creates a directory, and intermediate directories as required 🏗️
• splitpath ($path) — splits a path into volume, directory, and filename portions. on systems with no concept of volume, it returns an empty string for volume 🪓
• splitdir ($path) — the opposite of catdir(); returns a list of path components 🔬
• tmpdir () — returns the name of the first writable directory from a list of possible temporary directories 📁
• tmpfile (TEXT => $is_textmode, %args) — in scalar context, returns the filehandle of a temporary file. in list context, returns the filehandle and the filename 🎁
  • if $is_textmode is true, the returned file handle is marked with TEXT_MODE ✍️
  • see File::Temp for valid keys of %args 🔑
• is_symlink ($filename) — returns whether a file is a symbolic link, as determined by -l. if $filename is not specified, it returns -l _ instead 👻
• is_executable ($filename) — returns whether a file is likely to be an executable file. and unlike is_symlink(), the $filename argument is not optional — you have to hand it over, no takebacks 🙅
• can_run ($filename) — checks if we can run some command 🏃
• is_uri ($string) — checks if a string is a valid URI 🔗
• move_path ($source, $target) — moves a path to another place, creating intermediate directories in the target path if neccessary. if the move failed, it tells the user to move it manually 😭 (yes, that's the documented behaviour. it's honest work)
• traverse_history (root => $fs_root, path => $path, cross => $cross, callback => $cb($path, $revision)) — traverses the history of $path in $fs_root backwards until the first copy, unless $cross is true. we do cross renames regardless of the value of $cross being non-zero, but not -1. we invoke $cb for each $path, $revision we encounter. and if cb returns a nonzero value we stop traversing as well 🛑
• is_path_inside($path, $parent) — returns true if the unix path $path is inside $parent. if they are the same, it returns true as well 🫂
• uri_escape($uri) — returns the escaped URI 🏃‍♀️
• uri_unescape($uri) — unescapes an escaped URI and returns it 🏃‍♀️‍➡️
• is_depotpath($path) — checks if a string is a valid depotpath 📍

---

bestie reminder 💖 every single one of those details is load-bearing, so don't go freestyling with the arguments or the defaults. the manpage said it, we're keeping it, no cap 🧢

---

and that's the whole page, you ate it, you understood it, I'm so proud of you 🌟 this one's perl v5.42.0, dated 2025-07-25, and it lives under SVK::Util(3) — see you in the next section bestie, mwah 💋👑