Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: dynamic formats
Message-ID: <7019@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 8 Feb 90 06:12:38 GMT
References: <5195@convex.convex.com>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 29

In article <5195@convex.convex.com> tchrist@convex.com (Tom Christiansen) writes:
: I'm trying to figure out a way to extend the syntax without breaking
: anything.  If write's syntax were
: 
: 	write(FILEHANDLE);
:     or	
: 	write(FILEHANDLE, FORMAT);
: 
: where FORMAT were the name of a tagged format field, it could work.

# Usage: &write(*FILEHANDLE, 'format-name', 'top-of-form-name');
#     or &write(*FILEHANDLE, 'format-name');

sub write {
    local(*HANDLE,$format,$top) = @_;

    $oldsel = select(HANDLE);
    $^ = $top if $top;
    $~ = $format;
    select($oldsel);

    write(HANDLE);
}

Formats do have their own namespace, as you can see here.  It just looks
like they don't from the examples because the default format for a filehandle
is of the same name.

Larry