Perl Modules to Manipulate Files





Perl Modules to Manipulate Files

The IO::All and IO::All::LWP Perl modules easily handle most file and network I/O tasks.

Modules are not in the standard distribution, are linked to CPAN.

Many modules described further down can be replaced with IO::All, which is full-featured.

Perl6::Say

Implements the Perl 6 say (print-with-newline) function. It handles different newlines on different platforms and also works with filehandles.

use Perl6::Say;
say "hello, world";

IO::All

Handle I/O in many ways. Overloads some operators.

use Perl6::Say;
use IO::All;
my $fn= "myfile";
my $contents= "Contents of file\n  has two lines";
my $dir= "/home/toma/perl/examples/io/one/two/index.html";

# IO::All way                  # Old way
io($fn) < $contents;           # File::Flat->write($fn,$contents);
say "yes" if io($fn)->is_file; # File::Flat->exists($fn);
say io($fn)->slurp;            # File::Flat->slurp($fn);
io($fn.'.new') < io($fn);      # File::Flat->copy($fn,$fn.'new');
io($dir)->mkpath;              # File::Flat->makeDirectory($dir);

                               # File::Slurp
my $stuff < io($fn);           # $stuff= read_file($fn);
my @lines = io($fn)->slurp;    # @lines= read_file($fn);
io($fn) < join '', @lines;     # write_file($fn, @lines);

# Compare this to File::List (see below)
# Include directories in file search
say "Search, include directories";
my @myfiles = io->curdir
                ->filter(sub {$_->name =~ /(my|one)/})
                ->All;

# Search for files only
say "Search, include only files";
@myfiles = io->curdir
             ->filter(sub {$_->name =~ /(my|one)/})
             ->All_Files;

# File::Spec->splitpath($dir.$fn);
my ($vol, $dir, $fn)= io($dir.$fn)->splitpath;

File::Flat

Pretend that directories don't exist. Has functions for all the stat commands and more.

use File::Flat;
my $fn= "myfile";
my $contents= "Contents of file";
File::Flat->write( $fn, $contents );
File::Flat->exists( $fn );
File::Flat->slurp( $fn );
File::Flat->copy( $fn, $fn_new );
File::Flat->makeDirectory( $dir );  # Can also specify a mode

File::List

Return an array of filenames.

use File::List;
my $dir="/usr/local/index.html";
my $search = new File::List($dir);        # Set the base of the find
$search->show_empty_dirs();               # show empty directories in output
my @files  = @{ $search->find("\.pl\$") };# escape $ in string, . in regex
my @files  = @{ $search->find("my*") };   # usually no escaping is needed

File::Slurp

File manipulation in a one-liner.

use File::Slurp;
my $all_of_it = read_file($filename);
my @all_lines = read_file($filename);
write_file($filename, @contents)
overwrite_file($filename, @new_contnts);
append_file($filename, @additional_contents);
my @files = read_dir($directory);

IO::File

Make one of those file handle objects.
Reading:

use IO::File;
my $fn="thisfile";
my $fh = new IO::File;
$fh->open($fn) or die "Can't open $fn for read\n";
$fh->close;

Writing:

use IO::File;
$fh = new IO::File ">$fn" or die "Can't open $fn for write\n";
print $fh "bar\n";
$fh->close;

File::Spec

Split full path into directory and filename:

use File::Spec;
my ($volume, $dirname, $fn) = File::Spec->splitpath($full_name);

Example Programs

Copy a directory structure

Makes an empty directory tree which is a copy of the structure at /usr/local/man.

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Tom Anderson Copyright (C) 2003 All Rights Reserved
#
# File::Flat and File::List example program
#

use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;
use File::Flat;
use File::List;

my $search = new File::List("/usr/local/man/index.html");
$search->show_only_dirs();
my @dirs  = @{ $search->find(".*") };
foreach my $dirname (@dirs)
{
  File::Flat->makeDirectory("/home/toma/perl/examples/fileflat/t3/index.html".
                            $dirname);
}

01/19/2003

By toma