File.Copy man page on Cygwin

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   22533 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
Cygwin logo
[printable version]

File::Copy(3pm)	       Perl Programmers Reference Guide	       File::Copy(3pm)

NAME
       File::Copy - Copy files or filehandles

SYNOPSIS
	       use File::Copy;

	       copy("file1","file2") or die "Copy failed: $!";
	       copy("Copy.pm",\*STDOUT);
	       move("/dev1/fileA","/dev2/fileB");

	       use File::Copy "cp";

	       $n = FileHandle->new("/a/file","r");
	       cp($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.

       copy
	   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).  Trying to
	   copy a file on top of itself is a fatal error.

	   If the destination (second argument) already exists and is a
	   directory, and the source (first argument) is not a filehandle,
	   then the source file will be copied into the directory specified by
	   the destination, using the same base name as the source file.  It's
	   a failure to have a filehandle as the source when the destination
	   is a directory.

	   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 will 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.  The
	   behavior is nearly the same as well: as of version 2.15, <cp> will
	   preserve the source file's permission bits like the shell utility
	   cp(1) would do, while "copy" uses the default permissions for the
	   target file (which may depend on the process' "umask", file
	   ownership, inherited ACLs, etc.).  If an error occurs in setting
	   permissions, "cp" will return 0, regardless of whether the file was
	   successfully copied.

       move
	   The "move" function also takes two parameters: the current name and
	   the intended name of the file to be 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".

       syscopy
	   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, which doesn't preserve OS-specific attributes.  For
	   VMS systems, this calls the "rmscopy" routine (see below).  For
	   OS/2 systems, this calls the "syscopy" XSUB directly. For Win32
	   systems, this calls "Win32::CopyFile".

	   Special behaviour if "syscopy" is defined (OS/2, VMS and Win32):

	   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 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.

AUTHOR
       File::Copy was written by Aaron Sherman <ajs@ajs.com> in 1995, and
       updated by Charles Bailey <bailey@newman.upenn.edu> in 1996.

perl v5.14.2			  2011-09-19		       File::Copy(3pm)
[top]

List of man pages available for Cygwin

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net