I'm using PDF::Create in a CGI environment. It interfaces via either a file name or file handle so, by using STDOUT, I can just stream the PDF file back to the user. However, users of Internet Explorer 4.01 and 5.5 are unable to receive files in this fashion due to a confusion between file extensions and MIME types (another stupid Microsoft trick). Anyway, I want to email the PDF as an attachment to these users. But to do so using Mail::Send and MIME::Parse requires having the entire PDF file in a variable. It's a short PDF, and I would prefer not having to write it to a file and read it back again just to get it into a variable, due to the requisite file locking and/or cleanup I'd have to do. Is there a simple way to associate a file handle with a string, so that any writes to the file handle (e.g. through PDF::Create) will just concatenate the written data to the string?

In reply to Printing to a Variable by Dr. Mu

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.