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.\"
.IX Title "IO::ScalarArray 3"
.TH IO::ScalarArray 3 2024-07-13 "perl v5.38.2" "User Contributed Perl Documentation"
.\" For nroff, turn off justification.  Always turn off hyphenation; it makes
.\" way too many mistakes in technical documents.
.if n .ad l
.nh
.SH NAME
IO::ScalarArray \- IO:: interface for reading/writing an array of scalars
.SH SYNOPSIS
.IX Header "SYNOPSIS"
Perform I/O on strings, using the basic OO interface...
.PP
.Vb 2
\&    use IO::ScalarArray;
\&    @data = ("My mes", "sage:\en");
\&
\&    ### Open a handle on an array, and append to it:
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray \e@data;
\&    $AH\->print("Hello");
\&    $AH\->print(", world!\enBye now!\en");
\&    print "The array is now: ", @data, "\en";
\&
\&    ### Open a handle on an array, read it line\-by\-line, then close it:
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray \e@data;
\&    while (defined($_ = $AH\->getline)) {
\&        print "Got line: $_";
\&    }
\&    $AH\->close;
\&
\&    ### Open a handle on an array, and slurp in all the lines:
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray \e@data;
\&    print "All lines:\en", $AH\->getlines;
\&
\&    ### Get the current position (either of two ways):
\&    $pos = $AH\->getpos;
\&    $offset = $AH\->tell;
\&
\&    ### Set the current position (either of two ways):
\&    $AH\->setpos($pos);
\&    $AH\->seek($offset, 0);
\&
\&    ### Open an anonymous temporary array:
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray;
\&    $AH\->print("Hi there!");
\&    print "I printed: ", @{$AH\->aref}, "\en";      ### get at value
.Ve
.PP
Don't like OO for your I/O?  No problem.
Thanks to the magic of an invisible \fBtie()\fR, the following now
works out of the box, just as it does with IO::Handle:
.PP
.Vb 2
\&    use IO::ScalarArray;
\&    @data = ("My mes", "sage:\en");
\&
\&    ### Open a handle on an array, and append to it:
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray \e@data;
\&    print $AH "Hello";
\&    print $AH ", world!\enBye now!\en";
\&    print "The array is now: ", @data, "\en";
\&
\&    ### Open a handle on a string, read it line\-by\-line, then close it:
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray \e@data;
\&    while (<$AH>) {
\&        print "Got line: $_";
\&    }
\&    close $AH;
\&
\&    ### Open a handle on a string, and slurp in all the lines:
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray \e@data;
\&    print "All lines:\en", <$AH>;
\&
\&    ### Get the current position (WARNING: requires 5.6):
\&    $offset = tell $AH;
\&
\&    ### Set the current position (WARNING: requires 5.6):
\&    seek $AH, $offset, 0;
\&
\&    ### Open an anonymous temporary scalar:
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray;
\&    print $AH "Hi there!";
\&    print "I printed: ", @{$AH\->aref}, "\en";      ### get at value
.Ve
.PP
And for you folks with 1.x code out there: the old \fBtie()\fR style still works,
though this is \fIunnecessary and deprecated\fR:
.PP
.Vb 1
\&    use IO::ScalarArray;
\&
\&    ### Writing to a scalar...
\&    my @a;
\&    tie *OUT, \*(AqIO::ScalarArray\*(Aq, \e@a;
\&    print OUT "line 1\enline 2\en", "line 3\en";
\&    print "Array is now: ", @a, "\en"
\&
\&    ### Reading and writing an anonymous scalar...
\&    tie *OUT, \*(AqIO::ScalarArray\*(Aq;
\&    print OUT "line 1\enline 2\en", "line 3\en";
\&    tied(OUT)\->seek(0,0);
\&    while (<OUT>) {
\&        print "Got line: ", $_;
\&    }
.Ve
.SH DESCRIPTION
.IX Header "DESCRIPTION"
This class is part of the IO::Stringy distribution;
see IO::Stringy for change log and general information.
.PP
The IO::ScalarArray class implements objects which behave just like
IO::Handle (or FileHandle) objects, except that you may use them
to write to (or read from) arrays of scalars.  Logically, an
array of scalars defines an in-core "file" whose contents are
the concatenation of the scalars in the array.  The handles created by
this class are automatically \f(CW\*(C`tiehandle\*(C'\fRd (though please see "WARNINGS"
for information relevant to your Perl version).
.PP
For writing large amounts of data with individual \fBprint()\fR statements,
this class is likely to be more efficient than IO::Scalar.
.PP
Basically, this:
.PP
.Vb 4
\&    my @a;
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray \e@a;
\&    $AH\->print("Hel", "lo, ");         ### OO style
\&    $AH\->print("world!\en");            ### ditto
.Ve
.PP
Or this:
.PP
.Vb 4
\&    my @a;
\&    $AH = new IO::ScalarArray \e@a;
\&    print $AH "Hel", "lo, ";           ### non\-OO style
\&    print $AH "world!\en";              ### ditto
.Ve
.PP
Causes \f(CW@a\fR to be set to the following array of 3 strings:
.PP
.Vb 3
\&    ( "Hel" ,
\&      "lo, " ,
\&      "world!\en" )
.Ve
.PP
See IO::Scalar and compare with this class.
.SH "PUBLIC INTERFACE"
.IX Header "PUBLIC INTERFACE"
.SS Construction
.IX Subsection "Construction"
.IP "new [ARGS...]" 4
.IX Item "new [ARGS...]"
\&\fIClass method.\fR
Return a new, unattached array handle.
If any arguments are given, they're sent to \fBopen()\fR.
.IP "open [ARRAYREF]" 4
.IX Item "open [ARRAYREF]"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Open the array handle on a new array, pointed to by ARRAYREF.
If no ARRAYREF is given, a "private" array is created to hold
the file data.
.Sp
Returns the self object on success, undefined on error.
.IP opened 4
.IX Item "opened"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Is the array handle opened on something?
.IP close 4
.IX Item "close"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Disassociate the array handle from its underlying array.
Done automatically on destroy.
.SS "Input and output"
.IX Subsection "Input and output"
.IP flush 4
.IX Item "flush"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
No-op, provided for OO compatibility.
.IP fileno 4
.IX Item "fileno"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
No-op, returns undef
.IP getc 4
.IX Item "getc"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Return the next character, or undef if none remain.
This does a \fBread\fR\|(1), which is somewhat costly.
.IP getline 4
.IX Item "getline"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Return the next line, or undef on end of data.
Can safely be called in an array context.
Currently, lines are delimited by "\en".
.IP getlines 4
.IX Item "getlines"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Get all remaining lines.
It will \fBcroak()\fR if accidentally called in a scalar context.
.IP "print ARGS..." 4
.IX Item "print ARGS..."
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Print ARGS to the underlying array.
.Sp
Currently, this always causes a "seek to the end of the array"
and generates a new array entry.  This may change in the future.
.IP "read BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET];" 4
.IX Item "read BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET];"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Read some bytes from the array.
Returns the number of bytes actually read, 0 on end-of-file, undef on error.
.IP "write BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET];" 4
.IX Item "write BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET];"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Write some bytes into the array.
.SS "Seeking/telling and other attributes"
.IX Subsection "Seeking/telling and other attributes"
.IP autoflush 4
.IX Item "autoflush"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
No-op, provided for OO compatibility.
.IP binmode 4
.IX Item "binmode"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
No-op, provided for OO compatibility.
.IP clearerr 4
.IX Item "clearerr"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR  Clear the error and EOF flags.  A no-op.
.IP eof 4
.IX Item "eof"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR  Are we at end of file?
.IP "seek POS,WHENCE" 4
.IX Item "seek POS,WHENCE"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Seek to a given position in the stream.
Only a WHENCE of 0 (SEEK_SET) is supported.
.IP tell 4
.IX Item "tell"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Return the current position in the stream, as a numeric offset.
.IP "setpos POS" 4
.IX Item "setpos POS"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Seek to a given position in the array, using the opaque \fBgetpos()\fR value.
Don't expect this to be a number.
.IP getpos 4
.IX Item "getpos"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Return the current position in the array, as an opaque value.
Don't expect this to be a number.
.IP aref 4
.IX Item "aref"
\&\fIInstance method.\fR
Return a reference to the underlying array.
.SH AUTHOR
.IX Header "AUTHOR"
Eryq (\fIeryq@zeegee.com\fR).
President, ZeeGee Software Inc (\fIhttp://www.zeegee.com\fR).
.SH CONTRIBUTORS
.IX Header "CONTRIBUTORS"
Dianne Skoll (\fIdfs@roaringpenguin.com\fR).
.SH "COPYRIGHT & LICENSE"
.IX Header "COPYRIGHT & LICENSE"
Copyright (c) 1997 Erik (Eryq) Dorfman, ZeeGee Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
.PP
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.