TITLE

STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR, ARGV, and DATA should become scalars

VERSION

  Maintainer: Nathan Wiger <nate@wiger.org>
  Date: 4 Aug 2000
  Last Modified: 14 Sep 2000
  Mailing List: perl6-language-io@perl.org
  Number: 30
  Version: 4
  Status: Frozen

ABSTRACT

Consensus has been reached that filehandles (currently barewords) will be revamped to become true $scalars, to make them consistent with other Perl variables.

STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR, and DATA should follow suit and be renamed $STDIN, $STDOUT, $STDERR, and $DATA, becoming full-fledged scalar fileobjects. In addition, ARGV should become $ARGV as well. The old function of $ARGV (the currently open filename) will be available via polymorphism.

NOTES ON FREEZE

This was pretty much accepted by everyone, since it follows logically from filehandles becoming scalars. A few clarifications were added, but it otherwise remains the same from the previous version.

DESCRIPTION

$STDIN, $STDOUT, $STDERR

Currently, filehandles are barewords, such as FILE and PIPE. However, for Perl 6 these are planned to be renamed to true "single-whatzitz" types (thanks Tom) and prefixed with a $. So, the current:

   print FILE "$stuff\n";

Will become something like:

   print $FILE "$stuff\n";

STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR need to follow suit. We should change

   print STDERR "$stuff\n";

to:

   print $STDERR "$stuff\n";

This makes them consistent with other Perl variables, such as @ARGV, %ENV, $VERSION, etc, all of which have the correct distiguishing prefix for their type.

$DATA

DATA should follow suit, becoming $DATA.

$ARGV

In addition, ARGV should be renamed to $ARGV. However, this overlaps with the already-existing $ARGV (currently open filename), appearing to cause problems. But never fear! Polymorphic objects to the rescue:

   while (<$ARGV>) {                 # used as fileobject
       next if ($ARGV eq $lastfile)  # $ARGV->STRING, filename
       print "Now reading $ARGV";    # $ARGV->STRING, filename
       dostuff($_);
       $lastfile = $ARGV;            # copies object, but that's ok
                                     # because will have ->STRING too
   }

This means that $ARGV will be both the filehandle *and* the name of the file, but it will automatically morph to suit your needs depending on context.

Additionally, ARGVOUT should either follow suit, or be wrapped into $ARGV ($ARGV->OUT?), whichever makes more sense.

IMPLEMENTATION

All references to these bareword filehandles will have to be changed.

In addition, $STDIN, $STDOUT, and $STDERR should be standard, read-write variables. If a person wants to do this:

   $STDOUT = $myfilehandle;
   print "Watch out!";

They should be able to. The same should (probably) go for $DATA and $ARGV.

MIGRATION

The p52p6 translator needs to be able to spot instances of barewords and globs and translate them to scalars:

   print STDERR @foo;       ->   print $STDERR @foo;
   dostuff(\*STDIN);        ->   dostuff($STDIN); 
   print while(<ARGV>);     ->   print while(<$ARGV>);
   select(STDERR);          ->   $DEFOUT = $STDERR;    # RFC 129
   tie *STDOUT, 'Apache';   ->   tie Apache $STDOUT;   # RFC 200

A similar process will have to be done with all other filehandle conversions as well, so this may well be handled implicitly by the more general conversion. We may be able to ignore globs since these should handle scalars implicitly as aliases.

REFERENCES

www.mail-archive.com

RFC 14: Modify open() to support FileObjects and Extensibility

RFC 159: True Polymorphic Objects

RFC 129: Replace default filehandle/select with $DEFOUT, $DEFERR, $DEFIN

RFC 200: Objects: Revamp tie to support extensibility (Massive tie changes)

This file is part of the Perl 6 Archive