Re: How to read contents of a file without opening it and print the contents

I hand you a flash drive. Tell me what information is stored on it without inserting it into any usb host. Also physically opening the drive is not allowed.

This is not meant to be mean nor to insult. I am simply trying to give a more physical analogy to help you see what you are asking and how it sounds.

You have to "open" a file to read the contents.

open FILE, "filename" or die "could not open filename";
while(<FILE>) {
    print $_;
}
close FILE;
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Re^2: How to read contents of a file without opening it and print the contents by Anonymous Monk on Jun 10, 2011 at 13:42 UTC
Based on that analogy, couldn't you have your script open and read /dev/hda1, parse the filesystem, find the file and read its data?	[reply]
Re^3: How to read contents of a file without opening it and print the contents by zek152 (Pilgrim) on Jun 10, 2011 at 13:50 UTC
That's why I put the word open in quotes. In your example I would say that "opening" /dev/hda1 means that you are "opening" a set of which the file is a subset. "Opening" a set implies that you have "opened" all subsets. (note the continued use of quotation marks) Because I know that someone will point out that opening a set does not imply opening all subsets (example: a box filled with other boxes) I will clarify that in this case I am refering to sets that contain only singletons (in this case bytes or blocks) as elements. Update: fixed moderate typo.	[reply]
Re^4: How to read contents of a file without opening it and print the contents by Anonymous Monk on Jun 10, 2011 at 14:05 UTC
I'm going to have settle for merely hiding the open in a system call: `cat filename > /dev/lp0` [download]	[reply] [d/l]