Perl Pocket Reference, 5th Edition

Input and Output

In input/output operations, filehandle may be a filehandle as opened by the open operator, a predefined filehandle (e.g., STDOUT), or a scalar variable that evaluates to a reference to or the name of a filehandle to be used.

<filehandle>

In scalar context, reads a single record, usually a line, from the file opened on filehandle. In list context, reads the rest of the file.

< >

<ARGV>

Reads from the input stream formed by the files specified in @ARGV, or standard input if no arguments were supplied.

binmode filehandle [ , layers ]

Arranges for the file opened on filehandle to be read or written using the specified I/O layers (default: :raw). For a list of standard I/O layers, see page 54.

close [ filehandle ]

Closes the filehandle. Resets $. if it was an input file. If filehandle is omitted, closes the currently selected filehandle.

dbmclose %hash

Closes the file associated with the hash. Superseded by untie, see page 64.

dbmopen %hash, dbmname, mode

Opens a dbm file and associates it with the hash. Superseded by tie, see page 64.

eof filehandle

Returns true if the next read will return EOF (end of file) or if the file is not open.

eof

Returns the EOF status for the last file read.

eof()

Indicates EOF on the pseudofile formed of the files listed on the command line.

fcntl filehandle, function, $var

Calls system-dependent file control functions.

fileno filehandle

Returns the file descriptor for a given (open) file.

flock filehandle, operation

Calls a system-dependent locking routine on the ...