Perl 5 version documentation

PerlIO::scalar

NAME

PerlIO::scalar - in-memory IO, scalar IO

SYNOPSIS

  1.    my $scalar = '';
  2.    ...
  3.    open my $fh, "<",  \$scalar or die;
  4.    open my $fh, ">",  \$scalar or die;
  5.    open my $fh, ">>", \$scalar or die;

or

  1.    my $scalar = '';
  2.    ...
  3.    open my $fh, "<:scalar",  \$scalar or die;
  4.    open my $fh, ">:scalar",  \$scalar or die;
  5.    open my $fh, ">>:scalar", \$scalar or die;

DESCRIPTION

A filehandle is opened but the file operations are performed "in-memory" on a scalar variable. All the normal file operations can be performed on the handle. The scalar is considered a stream of bytes. Currently fileno($fh) returns -1.

IMPLEMENTATION NOTE

PerlIO::scalar only exists to use XSLoader to load C code that provides support for treating a scalar as an "in memory" file. One does not need to explicitly use PerlIO::scalar .