File::Copy(3) Perl Programmers Reference Guide File::Copy(3)NAMEFile::Copy - Copy files or filehandles
SYNOPSIS
use File::Copy;
copy("file1","file2");
copy("Copy.pm",\*STDOUT);'
move("/dev1/fileA","/dev2/fileB");
use POSIX;
use File::Copy cp;
$n=FileHandle->new("/dev/null","r");
cp($n,"x");'
DESCRIPTION
The File::Copy module provides two basic functions, copy
and move, which are useful for getting the contents of a
file from one place to another.
o The copy function takes two parameters: a file to copy
from and a file to copy to. Either argument may be a
string, a FileHandle reference or a FileHandle glob.
Obviously, if the first argument is a filehandle of
some sort, it will be read from, and if it is a file
name it will be opened for reading. Likewise, the
second argument will be written to (and created if
need be).
Note that passing in files as handles instead of names
may lead to loss of information on some operating
systems; it is recommended that you use file names
whenever possible. Files are opened in binary mode
where applicable. To get a consistent behaviour when
copying from a filehandle to a file, use binmode on
the filehandle.
An optional third parameter can be used to specify the
buffer size used for copying. This is the number of
bytes from the first file, that wil be held in memory
at any given time, before being written to the second
file. The default buffer size depends upon the file,
but will generally be the whole file (up to 2Mb), or
1k for filehandles that do not reference files (eg.
sockets).
You may use the syntax use File::Copy "cp" to get at
the "cp" alias for this function. The syntax is
exactly the same.
o The move function also takes two parameters: the
current name and the intended name of the file to be
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moved. If the destination already exists and is a
directory, and the source is not a directory, then the
source file will be renamed into the directory
specified by the destination.
If possible, move() will simply rename the file.
Otherwise, it copies the file to the new location and
deletes the original. If an error occurs during this
copy-and-delete process, you may be left with a
(possibly partial) copy of the file under the
destination name.
You may use the "mv" alias for this function in the
same way that you may use the "cp" alias for copy.
File::Copy also provides the syscopy routine, which copies
the file specified in the first parameter to the file
specified in the second parameter, preserving OS-specific
attributes and file structure. For Unix systems, this is
equivalent to the simple copy routine. For VMS systems,
this calls the rmscopy routine (see below). For OS/2
systems, this calls the syscopy XSUB directly.
Special behaviour if syscopy is defined (VMS and OS/2)
If both arguments to copy are not file handles, then copy
will perform a "system copy" of the input file to a new
output file, in order to preserve file attributes, indexed
file structure, etc. The buffer size parameter is
ignored. If either argument to copy is a handle to an
opened file, then data is copied using Perl operators, and
no effort is made to preserve file attributes or record
structure.
The system copy routine may also be called directly under
VMS and OS/2 as File::Copy::syscopy (or under VMS as
File::Copy::rmscopy, which is the routine that does the
actual work for syscopy).
rmscopy($from,$to[,$date_flag])
The first and second arguments may be strings,
typeglobs, typeglob references, or objects inheriting
from IO::Handle; they are used in all cases to obtain
the filespec of the input and output files,
respectively. The name and type of the input file are
used as defaults for the output file, if necessary.
A new version of the output file is always created,
which inherits the structure and RMS attributes of the
input file, except for owner and protections (and
possibly timestamps; see below). All data from the
input file is copied to the output file; if either of
the first two parameters to rmscopy is a file handle,
its position is unchanged. (Note that this means a
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file handle pointing to the output file will be
associated with an old version of that file after
rmscopy returns, not the newly created version.)
The third parameter is an integer flag, which tells
rmscopy how to handle timestamps. If it is < 0, none
of the input file's timestamps are propagated to the
output file. If it is > 0, then it is interpreted as
a bitmask: if bit 0 (the LSB) is set, then timestamps
other than the revision date are propagated; if bit 1
is set, the revision date is propagated. If the third
parameter to rmscopy is 0, then it behaves much like
the DCL COPY command: if the name or type of the
output file was explicitly specified, then no
timestamps are propagated, but if they were taken
implicitly from the input filespec, then all
timestamps other than the revision date are
propagated. If this parameter is not supplied, it
defaults to 0.
Like copy, rmscopy returns 1 on success. If an error
occurs, it sets $!, deletes the output file, and
returns 0.
RETURN
All functions return 1 on success, 0 on failure. $! will
be set if an error was encountered.
AUTHORFile::Copy was written by Aaron Sherman <ajs@ajs.com> in
1995, and updated by Charles Bailey
<bailey@newman.upenn.edu> in 1996.
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