NAME

POSIX::1003::FdIO - POSIX handling file descriptors

SYNOPSIS

use POSIX::1003::FdIO;

$fd = openfd($fn, O_RDWR);
defined $fd or die $!;   # $fd==0 is valid value! (STDIN)

$fd = openfd($fn, O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC);
$fd = openfd($fn, O_CREAT|O_WRONLY, 0640);

my $buf;
$bytes_read    = readfd($fd, $buf, BUFSIZ);
$bytes_written = writefd($fd, $buf, 5);

$off_t = seekfd($fd, 0, SEEK_SET);  # rewind!
$fd2   = dupfd($fd);

closefd($fd) or die $!;

my ($r, $w) = pipefd();
writefd($w, "hello", 5);
readfd($r, $buf, 5);
closefd($r) && closefd($w) or die $!;

my $fh = fdopen $fd or die $!;

DESCRIPTION

Most people believe that the sys* commands in Perl-Core are not capable of doing unbuffered IO. For those people, we have this module. The question whether sysread() or readfd() is meassurable faster cannot be answered.

The fcntl() command has its separate module POSIX::1003::Fcntl. Locking functions are locate there as well, because they are often implemented via fcntl.

FUNCTIONS

Overview

Perl defaults to use file-handles avoiding file descriptors. For that reason, the fread of POSIX is the read of Perl; that's confusing. The POSIX-in-Core implementation makes you write CORE::read() and POSIX::read() explicitly. However, POSIX::read() is the same as CORE::sysread()!

For all people who do not trust the sys* commands (and there are many), we provide the implementation of POSIX-in-Core with a less confusing name to avoid accidents.

   POSIX   Perl-Core POSIX.pm POSIX::1003::FdIO
FH fseek   seek
FD lseek   sysseek   lseek    seekfd
FH fopen   open
FD open    sysopen            openfd   # sysopen is clumpsy
FD fdopen  open               fdopen   # IO::Handle->new_from_fd
FH fclose  close
FD close   close     close    closefd
FH fread   read
FD read    sysread   read     readfd
FH fwrite  print
FD write   syswrite  write    writefd
FH         pipe,open                   # buffered unless $|=0
FD pipe              pipe     pipefd
FH stat    stat
FD fstat             fstat    statfd
FN lstat   lstat
FH ftell   tell
FD                            tellfd   # tell on fd not in POSIX
FH rewind            rewind
FD                            rewindfd # rewind on fd not in POSIX
FD creat             creat    creatfd
FD dup                        dupfd
FD fcntl   fcntl              (many)   # see ::Fcntl
FD flock   flock              flockfd  # see ::Fcntl
FD lockf                      lockf    # see ::Fcntl

Works on: FH=file handle, FD=file descriptor, FN=file name

Standard POSIX

closefd(FD)

Always check the return code: undef on error, cause in $!. closefd $fd or die $!;

There is no sysclose() in core, because sysopen() does unbuffered IO via its perl-style file-handle: when you open with CORE::sysopen(), you must close with CORE::close().

creatfd(FILENAME, MODE)

Implemented via openfd(), which is true by definition of POSIX.

dup2fd(FD, NEWFD)

Copy file-descriptor FD to an explicit NEWFD number. When already in use, the file at NEWFD will be closed first. Returns undef on failure.

dupfd(FD)

Copy the file-descriptor FD into the lowest-numbered unused descriptor. The new fd is returned, undef on failure.

fdopen(FD, MODE)

Converts a FD into an (buffered) FH. You probably want to set binmode after this. MODE can be Perl-like '<', '>', '>>', or POSIX standard 'r', 'w', 'a'. POSIX modes 'r+', 'w+', and 'a+' can probably not be supported.

openfd(FILENAME, FLAGS, MODE)

Returned is an integer file descriptor (FD). Returns undef on failure (and '0' is a valid FD!)

FLAGS are composed from the O_* constants defined by this module (import tag :mode) The MODE field combines S_I* constants defined by POSIX::1003::FS (import tag :stat).

pipefd()

Returns the reader and writer file descriptors. See also POSIX::1003::Fcntl::setfd_pipe_size()

example:

my ($r, $w) = pipefd;
writefd($w, "hello", 5 );
readfd($r, $buf, 5 );

readfd(FD, SCALAR, [LENGTH])

Read the maximum of LENGTH bytes from FD into the SCALAR. Returned is the actual number of bytes read. The value -1 tells you there is an error, reported in $!

Be warned that a returned value smaller than LENGTH does not mean that the FD has nothing more to offer: the end is reached only when 0 (zero) is returned. Therefore, this reading is quite inconvenient. You may want to use POSIX::Util subroutine readfd_all

seekfd(FD, OFFSET, WHENCE)

The WHENCE is a SEEK_* constant.

statfd(FD)

Request file administration information about an open file. It returns the same list of values as stat on filenames.

writefd(FD, BYTES, [LENGTH])

Attempt to write the first LENGTH bytes of STRING to FD. Returned is the number of bytes actually written. You have an error only when -1 is returned.

The number of bytes written can be less than LENGTH without an error condition: you have to call write again with the remaining bytes. This is quite inconvenient. You may want to use POSIX::Util subroutine readfd_all

Additional

Zillions of Perl programs reimplement these functions. Let's simplify code.

rewindfd(FD)

Seek to the beginning of the file

tellfd(FD)

Reports the location in the file. This call does not exist (not in POSIX, nor on other UNIXes), however is a logical counterpart of the tell() on filenames.

CONSTANTS

The following constants are exported, shown here with the values discovered during installation of this module.

BUFSIZ         8192
EOF            -1
MAX_INPUT      255
O_ACCMODE      3
O_APPEND       1024
O_ASYNC        8192
O_CLOEXEC      524288
O_CREAT        64
O_DIRECT       16384
O_DIRECTORY    65536
O_DSYNC        4096
O_EXCL         128
O_FSYNC        1052672
O_LARGEFILE    0
O_NDELAY       2048
O_NOATIME      262144
O_NOCTTY       256
O_NOFOLLOW     131072
O_NONBLOCK     2048
O_RDONLY       0
O_RDWR         2
O_RSYNC        1052672
O_SYNC         1052672
O_TRUNC        512
O_WRONLY       1
PIPE_BUF       4096
SEEK_CUR       1
SEEK_DATA      3
SEEK_END       2
SEEK_HOLE      4
SEEK_SET       0
SSIZE_MAX      9223372036854775807
STDERR_FILENO  2
STDIN_FILENO   0
STDOUT_FILENO  1

You can limit the import to the SEEK_* constants by explicitly using the :seek import tag. Use the :mode for all O_* constants, to be used with openfd().

SEE ALSO

This module is part of POSIX-1003 distribution version 0.95.1, built on August 26, 2013. Website: http://perl.overmeer.net. The code is based on POSIX, which is released with Perl itself. See also POSIX::Util for additional functionality.

COPYRIGHTS

Copyrights 2011-2013 on the perl code and the related documentation by [Mark Overmeer]. For other contributors see ChangeLog.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html