Re: direct data to a socket

The $_[0] is the socket that is passed from the accept into the sub. The filename is looked up and if it is executable, a pipe is created with it, otherwise it is opened directly. In either case the contents of the resulting IO::All object are fed into the $_[0] socket. Very similar to the simplistic use of '<' in:

$contents < io 'file.txt';
[download]

So this oneline web server can send the contents of simple files, or the generated output from executables.

Update: The reason you couldn't find anything in perldoc is because this is an operator that has been overridden to act in this way by IO::All which is where the simple example above comes from. Thus, you can only use the '<' operator this way with IO:All objects.

Comment on Re: direct data to a socket Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: direct data to a socket by demoralizer (Beadle) on Oct 22, 2014 at 08:54 UTC
Thanks for your answer Loops... what I'm really looking for is the meaning of this <, the whole rest is quite simple and completely clear. I know this redirection from shell command line but not within perl... is it the same meaning here? Can you point me to perldoc where this is described, please?	[reply]
Re^3: direct data to a socket by Corion (Patriarch) on Oct 22, 2014 at 08:57 UTC
This is magic employed by IO::All. If you want to know the details, IO::All overrides some operators of Perl to make the normal Perl syntax do something different when dealing with IO::All objects. The expression is simply `$a < $b`, the comparison expression. Except that the IO::All objects do something different when "compared" with something, to make this syntax appear like shell redirection.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: direct data to a socket by jonadab (Parson) on Oct 22, 2014 at 10:43 UTC
Wow, that's icky. I understand why overloading exists, and needs to exist. Things like being able to subtract two DateTime objects and get a DateTime::duration object are the stuff of which consistent, intuitive behavior are made. But overloading what is normally a comparison operator to do something completely semantically unrelated to comparison doesn't make me smile. If it were in the ACME:: namespace, that would be one thing...	[reply]
Re^2: direct data to a socket by choroba (Cardinal) on Oct 22, 2014 at 12:03 UTC
Re: direct data to a socket by jonadab (Parson) on Oct 23, 2014 at 00:38 UTC
Re^4: direct data to a socket by demoralizer (Beadle) on Oct 22, 2014 at 09:05 UTC
Now it's clear or at least I know where to search for :) Thanks a lot to all of you, for bringing some enlightenment to me!	[reply]
Re^3: direct data to a socket by Loops (Curate) on Oct 22, 2014 at 08:58 UTC
Updated the original post, to be more clear about that part, but not quickly enough, sorry. As I said in that update, this is a specific operator overload implemented by IO::All. It is very specific to objects created with IO::All and so you wont see examples of usage like this anywhere else in perldoc.	[reply]