XBase::Base(3pm)

✨ NAME ✨

XBase::Base — the base input/output module for the XBase suite, and it's literally the backbone bestie 💅

Okay so real talk, this page is from the User Contributed Perl Documentation collection, and it's giving very much "infrastructure module, not a vibe for casual users." Let's get into it.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

You don't call this one directly, no cap — it comes in sideways:

Used indirectly, via XBase or XBase::Memo.

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So XBase::Base is the catch-all I/O girlie for all the other XBase classes. It handles all the file-reading and file-writing drama so the other classes don't have to. This module is for people who are out here building extra XBase classes and methods — the devs, the extenders, the main characters of subclassing.

If you're just a regular user of the XBase(3) module, there is genuinely nothing interesting in here for you. Not a single crumb. Go home bestie. 🙈

One thing you do need to know: methods in XBase::Base return nothing (undef) when they hit an error, and you can go grab the actual error message with the errstr method. That's your receipts. 🧾

Methods are:

• new — the constructor, the origin story. It creates the object, and if you hand it a file name, it opens that file too. ✨
• open — opens the file, then uses the method read_header to read the header and set up the object's data structure. Heads up: read_header should be defined in the derived class — there is no default, so if you didn't write it, that's on you. 💀
• close — closes the file. It does not destroy the object. The object lives on. Iconic, honestly. 👑
• drop — unlinks the file. Bye bye file. 🫶
• create_file — creates a file with the given name. The second parameter is optional, and it's the permission specification for the file. 🔐

Now, the reading/writing methods have some expectations, and here's the tea: they assume the file has a header of length header_len bytes (which is possibly 0), and after that, records of length record_len. Both of these values should be set by the read_header method. So like, set them. Don't be weird about it. 💖

• seek_to, seek_to_record — seeks to an absolute position, or to the start of the record. Pick your destination, babe. 📍
• read_record, read_from — reads data from a specified position (that's the offset) or from a given record. The second parameter is the length to read — it's optional for read_record. And get this: that length can be negative, and in that case the read will not complain if the file is shorter than requested. Lowkey forgiving, highkey useful. 😌
• write_to, write_record — writes data to an absolute position, or to a specified record position. Important: the data is not padded to record_len, it's just written out as-is. No padding, no filler, no extra fluff. Periodt. ✍️

General locking methods are locksh, lockex and unlock. These call _locksh, _lockex and _unlock, which can be redefined to allow any way of locking — not just the default flock. So you've got options, diva. 🔒

And the responsibility tea: the user is responsible for calling the lock if he needs it. Nobody's gonna do it for you. 🫡

No more description — check the source code if you need to know more. That's the whole vibe. Go read the source. 📖

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💜 VERSION 💜

1.02

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🌈 AVAILABLE FROM 🌈

http://www.adelton.com/perl/DBD-XBase/

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🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

(c) 1997--2011 Jan Pazdziora.

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

perl(1), XBase(3)

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And that's the whole page, bestie! 🫶 This one's running on perl v5.34.0, dated 2022-06-13, and it's the XBase::Base(3pm) manual page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation. Now go forth and subclass responsibly. Mwah. 💖✨🎀