Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!convex!usenet
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Reading a file into a string
Message-ID: <1991Jan31.012957.25993@convex.com>
Date: 31 Jan 91 01:29:57 GMT
References: <11235@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <97130173@bfmny0.BFM.COM> <120644@uunet.UU.NET>
Sender: usenet@convex.com (news access account)
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
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Nntp-Posting-Host: pixel.convex.com

From the keyboard of rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim):
:This would also be a good time to ask about args to ioctls. I have
:been precreating them out of paranoia:
:$sgtty = 'ioekfl'; ioctl(FH,$TIOCGETP,$sgtty);
:Is this necessary? In either case, why?

I believe ioctl() works like syscall(), in that you need to pre-extend the
string so the kernel has a place to write what it needs.  This is 
different from sysread, who knows how much it'll need.

BTW, I like to do stuff like this:

    $sgttyb_t = 'c4 s';
    sub sgttyb {
	wantarray ? unpack($sgttyb_t, @_) : pack($sgttyb_t, @_);
    } 

You could then say to init:

    $sgttyb = &sgttyb();

But don't forget the parens.  This time they matter.  You don't
want the previous guy's old @_.


:(6) $"=''; @str = <FILE>; $str = "@str";

It seems a tad wasteful to my efficiency-maniacal self to allocate all
those array members just to cat them together.  At least undef it or let
it go out of local scope.


:(7) @str = <FILE>; $str = join(//,"@str");

If you didn't set $" to null, you'll get the "wrong" answer there, 
i.e. extra spaces by default.  Skip the quotes if you want.

:Horshoe mode .signature: perl -e 'print "Just another $0 hacker,"'

"Just another /tmp/perl-e029116 hacker,"?  Well, it IS different.

--tom
--
"Hey, did you hear Stallman has replaced /vmunix with /vmunix.el?  Now
 he can finally have the whole O/S built-in to his editor like he
 always wanted!" --me (Tom Christiansen <tchrist@convex.com>)