Recursively changing STDOUT

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

Dear Monks,

I need to write some recursive subroutine that in each entry has to

save STDOUT and STDERR,
change it to redirect them to some files,
do something with them and call itself under the apropriate conditions
recover the old values.

I know how to do it using "old style" with the ">&" descriptor. I.e. something like:

  my $log = ...;
  my $err = ...;
 
  open(SAVEOUT, ">&STDOUT") or die ...
  open(STDOUT,"> $log") or die ..

  open(SAVEERR, ">&STDERR") or die ...
  open(STDERR,"> $err") or die ..
[download]

but I need to use lexical variables $SAVEOUT, and $SAVEERR instead of global variables. The problem being that to recover the old values I have now:

  open(STDOUT, ">&SAVEOUT");
  open(STDERR, ">&SAVEERR");
[download]

I assume that this construction will not work If I use it with lexical variables? i.e.

  open(STDOUT, ">&$SAVEOUT");
  open(STDERR, ">&$SAVEERR");
[download]

How can I do it?

Thanks!

Casiano

Comment on Recursively changing STDOUT Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Recursively changing STDOUT by shmem (Chancellor) on Sep 16, 2007 at 13:13 UTC
This sounds like an XY Problem to me. Are you expicitly doing `print STDOUT $foo;` [download] somewhere? Or are you just printing to "the default filehandle" as in `print $foo;` [download] without specifiying it? If the latter is the case, you'll probably be better of with select and using lexical filehandles. `sub prepare_foo_print { my ($foo, $file) = @_; open my $fh, '>>', $file or die "bummer: $!\n"; my $oldfh = select $fh; # currently opened $file now is default filehandle # (instead of STDOUT) print_whatever ($foo); select $oldfh; } sub print_whatever { print shift; }` [download] --shmem _($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo. G°\ / /\_¯/(q / ---------------------------- \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."· ");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Recursively changing STDOUT by Sidhekin (Priest) on Sep 16, 2007 at 12:30 UTC
moritz gave you half the answer. The one thing remaining, is reopening STDOUT, STDERR with the $SAVEOUT, $SAVEERR. The three-argument open covers that: `open(STDOUT, '>&', $SAVEOUT) or die ... open(STDERR, '>&', $SAVEERR) or die ...` [download] `print "Just another Perl ${\(trickster and hacker)},"` The Sidhekin proves Sidhe did it!	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Recursively changing STDOUT by moritz (Cardinal) on Sep 16, 2007 at 12:22 UTC
You can use lexical variables as file handles: `open (my $saveout, ...);` Perl 6 in German	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Recursively changing STDOUT by casiano (Pilgrim) on Sep 16, 2007 at 12:32 UTC
Thanks Moritz, But to recover the old values I have now: `open(STDOUT, ">&SAVEOUT"); open(STDERR, ">&SAVEERR");` [download] ¿Can I use this with lexical variables? i.e. `open(STDOUT, ">&$SAVEOUT"); open(STDERR, ">&$SAVEERR");` [download] It will not produce a interpolation of the filehandle? Casiano	[reply] [d/l] [select]