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Perl File Open: Creating, Reading and Writing to Files in Perl | Cave of Programming

Perl File Open: Creating, Reading and Writing to Files in Perl

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Dealing with files in Perl is very easy once you get used to the slightly odd syntax. Here are some examples to get you started.

Open a File in Perl

To open a file in Perl, just the open() subroutine. Heres an example of a program that opens a file, reads the file one line at a time and prints each line to the terminal. u s es t r i c t ; u s ew a r n i n g s ; #P u tt h ef i l en a m ei nas t r i n gv a r i a b l e #s ow ec a nu s ei tb o t ht oo p e nt h ef i l e #a n dt or e f e rt oi na ne r r o rm e s s a g e #i fn e e d e d . m y$ f i l e=" t e m p . t x t " ; #U s et h eo p e n ( )f u n c t i o nt oo p e nt h ef i l e . u n l e s s ( o p e nF I L E ,$ f i l e ){ #D i ew i t he r r o rm e s s a g e #i fw ec a n ' to p e ni t . d i e" \ n U n a b l et oo p e n$ f i l e \ n " ; } #R e a dt h ef i l eo n el i n ea tat i m e . w h i l e ( m y$ l i n e=< F I L E > ){ #W e ' l lj u s tp r i n tt h el i n ef o rn o w . p r i n t$ l i n e ; } #c l o s et h ef i l e . c l o s eF I L E ; If you want to read binary files in Perl, you need to set the binmode on the file handle.

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The following example also illustrates how you can read an entire file in one go. Of course if the file is large and your memory limited, this might be a bad idea. Usually you probably want to read a file in chunks, writing out the chunks to another file as you go. u s es t r i c t ; u s ew a r n i n g s ; #P u tt h ef i l en a m ei nas t r i n gv a r i a b l e #s ow ec a nu s ei tb o t ht oo p e nt h ef i l e #a n dt or e f e rt oi na ne r r o rm e s s a g e #i fn e e d e d . m y$ f i l e=" t e m p . b i n " ; #U s et h eo p e n ( )f u n c t i o nt oo p e nt h ef i l e . u n l e s s ( o p e nF I L E ,$ f i l e ){ #D i ew i t he r r o rm e s s a g e #i fw ec a n ' to p e ni t . d i e" \ n U n a b l et oo p e n$ f i l e \ n " ; } #T e l lP e r lw ew a n tt or e a dd a t aa sb i n a r y . b i n m o d e ( F I L E ) ; #G e tr i do ft h el i n es e p a r a t o r . #T h i sa l l o w su st or e a de v e r y t h i n g #i no n eg o . u n d e f$ / ; #R e a dt h ee n t i r ef i l e .I fy o ud o n ' tw a n t #t or e a da l lo fi ta to n c e ,y o un e e dt h e #r e a d ( )s u b r o u t i n e . m y$ c o n t e n t s=< F I L E > ; p r i n t" R e a d".l e n g t h ( $ c o n t e n t s )."b y t e s \ n " ; #c l o s et h ef i l e . c l o s eF I L E ; R e a d5 2 0b y t e s If you are dealing with a text file, its often useful to set the file record separator $/ (set to the newline character by default) to some other value, such as a particular closing XML tag. Undefining it altogether, as in the above example, causes the entire file to be read at once.
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Creating Files In Perl

To create a file in Perl, you also use open(). The difference is that you need to prefix the file name with a > character to make Perl open the file for writing. Any existing file with the name you supply to open() will be overwritten, unless you specify >> instead, which opens a file for appending. This program creates a file called temp.txt and writes two lines to it. u s es t r i c t ; u s ew a r n i n g s ; #P u tt h ef i l en a m ei nas t r i n gv a r i a b l e #s ow ec a nu s ei tb o t ht oo p e nt h ef i l e #a n dt or e f e rt oi na ne r r o rm e s s a g e #i fn e e d e d . m y$ f i l e=" t e m p . t x t " ; #U s et h eo p e n ( )f u n c t i o nt oc r e a t et h ef i l e . u n l e s s ( o p e nF I L E ,' > ' . $ f i l e ){ #D i ew i t he r r o rm e s s a g e #i fw ec a n ' to p e ni t . d i e" \ n U n a b l et oc r e a t e$ f i l e \ n " ; } #W r i t es o m et e x tt ot h ef i l e . p r i n tF I L E" H e l l ot h e r e \ n " ; p r i n tF I L E" H o wa r ey o u ? \ n " ; #c l o s et h ef i l e . c l o s eF I L E ;

Open A Text File, Process It and Write to Another File

Heres a complete example of a program that opens a text file in Perl, reads it line by line, carries out processing on each line and writes the results to another file. #A l w a y sd e f i n et h e s et w oa tt h et o p so f #y o u rs c r i p t s . u s es t r i c t ; u s ew a r n i n g s ; #T h i st u r n so f fo u t p u tb u f f e r i n g . #U s e f u lf o rr e a l t i m ed i s p l a yo f #p r o g r e s so re r r o rm e s s a g e s . $ | = 1 ; #T h i si sf o rg e t t i n gc o m m a n d l i n eo p t i o n s . #C o u l da l t e r n a t i v e l yu s e@ A R G Vi n s t e a d . u s eG e t o p t : : S t d ; #R e t u r nau s a g em e s s a g e .U s u a l l yw e ' di n d e n tt h e #c o n t e n t so fas u b r o u t i n e ,b u th e r ew ec a n ' ts i n c e #t h a tw o u l da f f e c tt h eu s a g em e s s a g e . s u bu s a g e{ r e t u r nq | u s a g e : p r o c e s s . p li< i n p u tf i l e >o< o u t p u tf i l e >
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Perl File Open: Creating, Reading and Writing to Files in Perl | Cave of Programming

R e a d sa l ll i n e si n< i n p u tf i l e > ,c h a n g e sa l lo c c u r e n c e so f ' d o g 't o' c a t 'a n dw r i t e st h er e s u l t st o< o u t p u tf i l e > . < i n p u tf i l e >i t s e l fi sn o tc h a n g e d . | ; } s u bm a i n{ #C o l l e c tt h eia n doo p t i o n sf r o mt h ec o m m a n dl i n e . m y% o p t s ; #T h ec o l o n ss p e c i f yt h a tt h ep r e c e e d i n gf l a g st a k e #a r g u m e n t s( f i l en a m e si nt h i sc a s e ) g e t o p t s ( ' i : o : ' ,\ % o p t s ) ; #C h e c kw eg o tt h ef l a g sa n da r g u m e n t sw en e e d . u n l e s s ( $ o p t s { ' i ' }a n d$ o p t s { ' o ' } ){ d i eu s a g e ( ) ; } #N o ww e ' v eg o tt h ei n p u ta n do u t p u tf i l en a m e s . m y$ i n p u t=$ o p t s { ' i ' } ; m y$ o u t p u t=$ o p t s { ' o ' } ; #T r yt oo p e nt h ei n p u tf i l e . u n l e s s ( o p e nI N P U T ,$ i n p u t ){ d i e" \ n U n a b l et oo p e n' $ i n p u t ' \ n " ; } #T r yt oc r e a t et h eo u t p u tf i l e #( o p e ni tf o rw r i t i n g ) u n l e s s ( o p e nO U T P U T ,' > ' . $ o u t p u t ){ d i e" \ n U n a b l et oc r e a t e' $ o u t p u t ' \ n " ; } #R e a do n el i n ea tat i m ef r o mt h ei n p u tf i l e #t i l lw e ' v er e a dt h e ma l l . w h i l e ( m y$ l i n e=< I N P U T > ){ #C h a n g ed o gt oc a t $ l i n e= ~s / d o g / c a t / i g ; #W r i t et h el i n et ot h eo u t p u tf i l e . p r i n tO U T P U T$ l i n e ; #P r i n tap r o g r e s si n d i c a t o r . p r i n t' . ' ; } #C l o s et h ef i l e s . c l o s eI N P U T ; c l o s eO U T P U T ; } m a i n ( ) ;
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