man Path::Class () - Cross-platform path specification manipulation
NAME
Path::Class - Cross-platform path specification manipulation
SYNOPSIS
use Path::Class;
my $dir = dir('foo', 'bar'); # Path::Class::Dir object my $file = file('bob', 'file.txt'); # Path::Class::File object
# Stringifies to 'foo/bar' on Unix, 'foo\bar' on Windows, etc. print "dir: $dir\n";
# Stringifies to 'bob/file.txt' on Unix, 'bob\file.txt' on Windows print "file: $file\n";
my $subdir = $dir->subdir('baz'); # foo/bar/baz my $parent = $subdir->parent; # foo/bar my $parent2 = $parent->parent; # foo
my $dir2 = $file->dir; # bob
# Work with foreign paths use Path::Class qw(foreign_file foreign_dir); my $file = foreign_file('Mac', ':foo:file.txt'); print $file->dir; # :foo: print $file->as_foreign('Win32'); # foo\file.txt
# Interact with the underlying filesystem:
# $dir_handle is an IO::Dir object my $dir_handle = $dir->open or die "Can't read $dir: $!";
# $file_handle is an IO::File object my $file_handle = $file->open($mode) or die "Can't read $file: $!";
DESCRIPTION
CWPath::Class is a module for manipulation of file and directory specifications (strings describing their locations, like CW'/home/ken/foo.txt' or CW'C:\Windows\Foo.txt') in a cross-platform manner. It supports pretty much every platform Perl runs on, including Unix, Windows, Mac, VMS, Epoc, Cygwin, OS/2, and NetWare.
The well-known module CWFile::Spec also provides this service, but it's sort of awkward to use well, so people sometimes avoid it, or use it in a way that won't actually work properly on platforms significantly different than the ones they've tested their code on.
In fact, CWPath::Class uses CWFile::Spec internally, wrapping all the unsightly details so you can concentrate on your application code. Whereas CWFile::Spec provides functions for some common path manipulations, CWPath::Class provides an object-oriented model of the world of path specifications and their underlying semantics. CWFile::Spec doesn't create any objects, and its classes represent the different ways in which paths must be manipulated on various platforms (not a very intuitive concept). CWPath::Class creates objects representing files and directories, and provides methods that relate them to each other. For instance, the following CWFile::Spec code:
my $absolute = File::Spec->file_name_is_absolute( File::Spec->catfile( @dirs, $file ) );
can be written using CWPath::Class as
my $absolute = Path::Class::File->new( @dirs, $file )->is_absolute;
or even as
my $absolute = file( @dirs, $file )->is_absolute;
Similar readability improvements should happen all over the place when using CWPath::Class.
Using CWPath::Class can help solve real problems in your code too - for instance, how many people actually take the volume (like CWC: on Windows) into account when writing CWFile::Spec-using code? I thought not. But if you use CWPath::Class, your file and directory objects will know what volumes they refer to and do the right thing.
The guts of the CWPath::Class code live in the CWPath::Class::File and CWPath::Class::Dir modules, so please see those modules' documentation for more details about how to use them.
EXPORT
The following functions are exported by default.
- file
- A synonym for CWPath::Class::File->new.
- dir
- A synonym for CWPath::Class::Dir->new.
If you would like to prevent their export, you may explicitly pass an empty list to perl's CWuse, i.e. CWuse Path::Class ().
The following are exported only on demand.
- foreign_file
- A synonym for CWPath::Class::File->new_foreign.
- foreign_dir
- A synonym for CWPath::Class::Dir->new_foreign.
Notes on Cross-Platform Compatibility
Although it is much easier to write cross-platform-friendly code with this module than with CWFile::Spec, there are still some issues to be aware of.
- •
- Some platforms, notably VMS and some older versions of DOS (I think), all filenames must have an extension. Thus if you create a file called foo/bar and then ask for a list of files in the directory foo, you may find a file called bar. instead of the bar you were expecting. Thus it might be a good idea to use an extension in the first place.
AUTHOR
Ken Williams, KWILLIAMS@cpan.org
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) Ken Williams. All rights reserved.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSO
Path::Class::Dir, Path::Class::File, File::Spec