FORMATS, filehandle and variables

stew has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi all,

I have been experimenting with formats and was wondering if it's possible to...
a) Define a format
b) Invoke it thru a file handle
then
c) Write the contents of the file handle to a variable rather than the file system

This is as far as I've got when I and everything seems ok

#!/usr/bin/perl


format INVOICE = 

+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+--------+
   Invoice To                                     Invoice From        
+          
   @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<                 The Get Rich Quick C
+o.            
   $name

   Address
   @*                                                                 
+          
   $address
   
   Description:                                        Cost:
   @<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< @###.##
   $description                                        Ł$cost
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+--------+
.

open(INVOICE,">print-invoice");
$name = "Another Sucker";
$address = "Address 1\nAddress2\nXX11 9DJ";
$description = "another mug to help us swell our coffers";
$cost = 999.99;
write (INVOICE);
[download]

This works fine apart from the @* denoting a multiline field y/n? gets fed into the output.(any ideas why?) But what I'd like to do is assign it to a variable to use in a template or a 'here document' for instance

I've tried adding stuff like $invoice =<INVOICE> but this doesn't seem to work

Many thanks

Stew

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Re: FORMATS, filehandle and variables by broquaint (Abbot) on Jan 06, 2004 at 14:43 UTC
Perhaps you could just skip out the second step and implement something like `swrite()` as demonstrated in `perlform` e.g `sub swrite { local $^A; formline( $_[0], @_[ 1 .. $#_ ] ); return $^A; } my $output = swrite(<<FORM, 1 .. 5 ); @<<<@\|\|\|@>>>@\|\|\|@<<< FORM print "format: $output", __output__ format: 1 2 3 4 5` [download] HTH `_________ broquaint`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: FORMATS, filehandle and variables by Fletch (Bishop) on Jan 06, 2004 at 15:00 UTC
Perhaps something like IO::Scalar is what you seek?	[reply]
Re: Re: FORMATS, filehandle and variables by duff (Parson) on Jan 06, 2004 at 16:11 UTC
Or in newer perl's (5.8.0 or better I think) you could just open a handle to a scalar ref and write to it. Quick (untested) example: `#!/usr/bin/perl format FOO = This is @\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\| $foo . open(FOO,">", \$str) or die; for $foo (qw(foo bar baz)) { write FOO; } close FOO; print $str;` [download] duff	[reply] [d/l]