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

Dear Monks

I want to store a filehandler in a hash-ref and use it like: 
my $s = {} ;
open( $s->{out}, ">out" ) or die "hmmmm\n" ;
print $s->{out} "test" ;
close $s->{out} ;

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Looks ok (to me), but doesn't work. If I change this code to 
my $s ;
open( $s, ">out" ) or die "hmmmm\n" ;
print $s "test" ;
close $s ;

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it works fine.
For some reason 'print' doesn't recognize $s->{out} as a filehandler. Any suggestions ?

thnx
LuCa

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: filehandle stored in hash-ref
by moritz (Cardinal) on Dec 10, 2009 at 15:19 UTC 
    print { $s->{out} } "test";

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    That's mentioned at the end of the print documentation.

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Re: filehandler stored in hash-ref
by keszler (Priest) on Dec 10, 2009 at 15:20 UTC 
    print {$s->{out}} "test";

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    Update: I was too slow on posting the print, so here's the read: 
    # because @in = <$s->{in}> won't work

my @in = readline($s->{in});

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Re: filehandler stored in hash-ref
by kyle (Abbot) on Dec 10, 2009 at 15:25 UTC

    You can get the print to work if you wrap the filehandle in a block. 

    my $s = {} ;
open  $s->{out}, '>', 'out' or die "open: $!\n";
print { $s->{out} } "test";
close $s->{out} or die "close: $!\n";

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    Note that if you're reading from a filehandle in an array, you have to store it in a scalar for the diamond operator to work. 

    my $fh = $s->{in};
my $line = <$fh>;

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    If that's too much trouble, you can use readline.

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Re: filehandler stored in hash-ref
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Dec 10, 2009 at 15:29 UTC
    By the way, it's "file handle". A handle is a means of holding on to resource. A "file handler" would be a piece of code that that applies a process to a file in a situation where you also appply the process to something other than files.
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Re: filehandler stored in hash-ref
by jeanluca (Deacon) on Dec 10, 2009 at 16:04 UTC
    thnx alot! also for explaining that its a handle not a handler :)

    One last (almost related) thing. I'm using Tie::Hash, so if the programs dies (because it cannot open the file), the DESTROY sub is called: 
    sub DESTROY {
  my $self = shift ;
  if ( $self->{out} && $self->{out}->opened() ) {
    ... do stuff ....
    close $self->{out} ;
  }
}

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    $self->{out} is the filehandle mentioned in my first post. Unfortunatly this generates the following 
    (in cleanup) Can't locate object method "opened" via package "IO::Hand
+le" at modules/MyTH.pm line 29.

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    So the question is how do I test if a filehandle is open ?
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      Perhaps you forgot to load IO::Handle...
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        thats it!

        But, if I see this 
        (in cleanup) Can't locate object method "opened" via package "IO::Hand
+le"

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        I would say IO::Handle is already loaded, because its already using this package !
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