[Israel.pm] convert perl string to file handle

[Shlomi Fish]

On Sunday 06 June 2004 17:28, Offer Kaye wrote:
> > hi
> > is there a efficinet way to convert perl string to file handle?
> > i used something like:
> > $buffer="....."
> > open IN,qq{echo $buffer|};
> >
> > print <IN>;
> >
> > but is there a better way?
> > thank
> > itamar
>
> Hi Itamar,
> What exactly are you trying to do?
> Your above code just prints the string in $buffer to stdout. Did you
> perhaps mean to open the file whose name is in $buffer and print its
> contents? For that just do:
>
>    my $buffer = "input_file_name";
>    open(IN,$buffer) or die "Couldn't open $buffer for reading: $!\n";
>    print <IN>;
>    close(IN) or die "Couldn't close $buffer after reading: $!\n";
>
> of course you can also you the Unix "cat" command for this:
>
>    my $buffer = "input_file_name";
>    print `cat $buffer`;
>

A few notes regarding the above code. The first thing, is that after thinking 
of it for a while I noticed you are doing something unnecessary here. You 
output the file to the stdout, trap its contents, and then output it to 
stdout again. This can be more easily achieved with:

<<<
my $buffer = "input_file_name";
system("cat", $buffer);
>>>

Nevertheless the `cat "$filename"` notation is useful and it is tempting to 
use it to slurp a file. It is not recommended for the following reasons:

1. It is not portable outside UNIX. (and even on UNIX may potentially cause 
problems.)

2. It is slower than the Perl implementation:

<<<
my $content;
{
	open my $fh, "foo" or die #!;
	local $/;
	$content = <$fh>;
	close $fh;
}
>>>

(there were others given in an entire article about slurp in Perl.com that was 
presented recently, but this is the standard idiom).

3. It is prone to malicious input. If $filename is '"; rm -fr $HOME; echo "' 
then what happens is left as an exercise to the reader.

4. Generally, calling the shell for help with what Perl can do by itself is 
frowned upon for serious uses of Perl. While you are allowed to do it (after 
all, TIMTOWDY), it is still bad style and unnecessary.

Best regards,

	Shlomi Fish

> If this is not what you wanted to do please elaborate...
> ----------------------------------
> Offer Kaye
>
> _______________________________________________
> Perl mailing list
> Perl at perl.org.il
> http://www.perl.org.il/mailman/listinfo/perl

-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      shlomif at iglu.org.il
Homepage:        http://shlomif.il.eu.org/

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
        [Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.]