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.
The "copy" function takes two parameters: a file to copy from and a file to copy to. Either argu-ment argument
ment may be a string, a FileHandle reference or a FileHandle glob. Obviously, if the first argu-ment argument
ment 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.
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 syn-tax syntax
tax is exactly the same.
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 loca-tion location
tion 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 parame-ter parameter
ter to the file specified in the second parameter, preserving OS-specific attributes and file struc-ture. structure.
ture. For Unix systems, this is equivalent to the simple "copy" routine, which doesn't preserve OS-specific OSspecific
specific attributes. For VMS systems, this calls the "rmscopy" routine (see below). For OS/2 sys-tems, systems,
tems, this calls the "syscopy" XSUB directly. For Win32 systems, this calls "Win32::CopyFile".
On Mac OS (Classic), "syscopy" calls "Mac::MoreFiles::FSpFileCopy", if available.
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 inher-iting inheriting
iting 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 revi-sion revision
sion date are propagated; if bit 1 is set, the revision date is propagated. If the third parame-ter parameter
ter 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 propa-gated. propagated.
gated. 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.
NOTES
On Mac OS (Classic), the path separator is ':', not '/', and the current directory is denoted as
':', not '.'. You should be careful about specifying relative pathnames. While a full path always
begins with a volume name, a relative pathname should always begin with a ':'. If specifying a
volume name only, a trailing ':' is required.
E.g.
copy("file1", "tmp"); # creates the file 'tmp' in the current directory
copy("file1", ":tmp:"); # creates :tmp:file1
copy("file1", ":tmp"); # same as above
copy("file1", "tmp"); # same as above, if 'tmp' is a directory (but don't do
# that, since it may cause confusion, see example #1)
copy("file1", "tmp:file1"); # error, since 'tmp:' is not a volume
copy("file1", ":tmp:file1"); # ok, partial path
copy("file1", "DataHD:"); # creates DataHD:file1
move("MacintoshHD:fileA", "DataHD:fileB"); # moves (don't copies) files from one
# volume to another
AUTHOR
File::Copy was written by Aaron Sherman <ajs@ajs.com> in 1995, and updated by Charles Bailey <bai-
ley@newman.upenn.edu> in 1996.
perl v5.8.8 2001-09-21 File::Copy(3pm)
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