Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!rutgers!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Local file handles?
Keywords: FILEHANDLE LOCAL
Message-ID: <10303@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 9 Nov 90 01:40:38 GMT
References: <9317@netxcom.DHL.COM>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 40

In article <9317@netxcom.DHL.COM> elw@netex.netx.com (Edwin Wiles) writes:
: Is there any way to declare a file handle to be local to a given subroutine?

There are two ways.

First, using an indirect filehandle:

$nextfh = 'fh000';

sub Arecursive {
    local($somefile, @somejunk) = @_;
    local($INPUT) = $nextfh++;		# magical increment
    open($INPUT, "< somefile" );
    while( <$INPUT> )
    {
	...
     @Bvalue = Arecursive( $_, @morejunk );
	...
    }
    close( $INPUT );
    return @Avalue;
}

or, using a * type glob:

sub Arecursive {
    local($somefile, @somejunk) = @_;
    local(*INPUT);
    open(INPUT, "< somefile" );
    while( <INPUT> )
    {
	...
     @Bvalue = Arecursive( $_, @morejunk );
	...
    }
    close( INPUT );
    return @Avalue;
}

Larry