Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!munnari.oz.au!frankland-river!pem
From: pem@frankland-river.aaii.oz.au (Paul E. Maisano)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Operations on filehandles
Message-ID: <1004@frankland-river.aaii.oz.au>
Date: 5 Feb 90 00:41:08 GMT
Organization: Australian AI Institute
Lines: 27

I was wondering what sort of object a filehandle was and what can be done
with one besides printing to them etc.

Specifically, can you save them in a local context in some way, similar to
what the local() function does with variables.

For example, if I open a file in a subroutine and use a file handle called
FILE which I open and then close, how do I know I'm not stomping on
another filehandle called FILE which has already been opened somewhere else
in my program.

I could create a package to avoid the possibility of a naming conflict but
this does not really solve the problem.

What if I want to write a recursive subroutine which opens a file ? How do
I keep separate filehandles for each recursive call ?

Is there a simple way to do this or must I generate a unique filehandle name
on each invocation ?

Any ideas appreciated.

------------------
Paul E. Maisano (email: pem@aaii.oz.au)
Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute
1 Grattan St. Carlton, Vic. 3053, Australia
Ph: +613 663-7922  Fax: +613 663-7937