NAME

       IPC::Filter - filter data through an external process

SYNOPSIS

               use IPC::Filter qw(filter);

               $compressed_data = filter($data, "bzip2");

DESCRIPTION

       The "filter" function provided by this module passes data through an external command,
       thus providing filtering in non-pipeline situations.

FUNCTIONS

       filter(DATA, SHELL_COMMAND)
       filter(DATA, PROGRAM, ARGS ...)
           The SHELL_COMMAND, or the PROGRAM with ARGS if more arguments are supplied, is
           executed as a separate process.  (The arguments other than DATA are ultimately passed
           to "exec"; see "exec" in perlfunc(1) for explanation of the choice between the two
           forms.)  The DATA (which must be either a simple string or a reference to a string) is
           supplied to the process on its standard input, and the process's standard output is
           captured and returned (as a simple string).

           If the process exits with a non-zero exit code or on a signal, the function will
           "die".  In the case of a non-zero exit code, the "die" message will duplicate the
           process's standard error output; in any other case, the error output is discarded.

SEE ALSO

       IPC::Open2

AUTHOR

       Andrew Main (Zefram) <zefram@fysh.org>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2004, 2007, 2010, 2011 Andrew Main (Zefram) <zefram@fysh.org>

LICENSE

       This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.