File::Copy(3) File::Copy(3)
NAME
File::Copy - Copy files or filehandles
SYNOPSIS
use File::Copy;
copy("file1","file2");
copy("Copy.pm",\*STDOUT);'
move("/dev1/fileA","/dev2/fileB");
use POSIX;
use File::Copy cp;
$n=FileHandle->new("/dev/null","r");
cp($n,"x");'
DESCRIPTION
The File::Copy module provides two basic functions, copy and move, which
are useful for getting the contents of a file from one place to another.
⊕ The copy function takes two parameters: a file to copy from and a
file to copy to. Either argument may be a string, a FileHandle
reference or a FileHandle glob. Obviously, if the first argument is a
filehandle of some sort, it will be read from, and if it is a file
name it will be opened for reading. Likewise, the second argument
will be written to (and created if need be).
Note that passing in files as handles instead of names may lead to
loss of information on some operating systems; it is recommended that
you use file names whenever possible. Files are opened in binary
mode where applicable. To get a consistent behavour when copying
from a filehandle to a file, use binmode on the filehandle.
An optional third parameter can be used to specify the buffer size
used for copying. This is the number of bytes from the first file,
that wil be held in memory at any given time, before being written to
the second file. The default buffer size depends upon the file, but
will generally be the whole file (up to 2Mb), or 1k for filehandles
that do not reference files (eg. sockets).
You may use the syntax use File::Copy "cp" to get at the "cp" alias
for this function. The syntax is exactly the same.
⊕ The move function also takes two parameters: the current name and the
intended name of the file to be moved. If the destination already
exists and is a directory, and the source is not a directory, then
the source file will be renamed into the directory specified by the
destination.
If possible, move() will simply rename the file. Otherwise, it
copies the file to the new location and deletes the original. If an
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File::Copy(3) File::Copy(3)
error occurs during this copy-and-delete process, you may be left
with a (possibly partial) copy of the file under the destination
name.
You may use the "mv" alias for this function in the same way that you
may use the "cp" alias for copy.
File::Copy also provides the syscopy routine, which copies the file
specified in the first parameter to the file specified in the second
parameter, preserving OS-specific attributes and file structure. For
Unix systems, this is equivalent to the simple copy routine. For VMS
systems, this calls the rmscopy routine (see below). For OS/2 systems,
this calls the syscopy XSUB directly.
Special behavior if syscopy is defined (VMS and OS/2)
If both arguments to copy are not file handles, then copy will perform a
"system copy" of the input file to a new output file, in order to
preserve file attributes, indexed file structure, etc. The buffer size
parameter is ignored. If either argument to copy is a handle to an
opened file, then data is copied using Perl operators, and no effort is
made to preserve file attributes or record structure.
The system copy routine may also be called directly under VMS and OS/2 as
File::Copy::syscopy (or under VMS as File::Copy::rmscopy, which is the
routine that does the actual work for syscopy).
rmscopy($from,$to[,$date_flag])
The first and second arguments may be strings, typeglobs, typeglob
references, or objects inheriting from IO::Handle; they are used in
all cases to obtain the filespec of the input and output files,
respectively. The name and type of the input file are used as
defaults for the output file, if necessary.
A new version of the output file is always created, which inherits
the structure and RMS attributes of the input file, except for owner
and protections (and possibly timestamps; see below). All data from
the input file is copied to the output file; if either of the first
two parameters to rmscopy is a file handle, its position is
unchanged. (Note that this means a file handle pointing to the
output file will be associated with an old version of that file after
rmscopy returns, not the newly created version.)
The third parameter is an integer flag, which tells rmscopy how to
handle timestamps. If it is < 0, none of the input file's timestamps
are propagated to the output file. If it is > 0, then it is
interpreted as a bitmask: if bit 0 (the LSB) is set, then timestamps
other than the revision date are propagated; if bit 1 is set, the
revision date is propagated. If the third parameter to rmscopy is 0,
then it behaves much like the DCL COPY command: if the name or type
of the output file was explicitly specified, then no timestamps are
propagated, but if they were taken implicitly from the input
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File::Copy(3) File::Copy(3)
filespec, then all timestamps other than the revision date are
propagated. If this parameter is not supplied, it defaults to 0.
Like copy, rmscopy returns 1 on success. If an error occurs, it sets
$!, deletes the output file, and returns 0.
RETURN
All functions return 1 on success, 0 on failure. $! will be set if an
error was encountered.
AUTHOR
File::Copy was written by Aaron Sherman <ajs@ajs.com> in 1995, and
updated by Charles Bailey <bailey@genetics.upenn.edu> in 1996.
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