NAME

       Net::servent - by-name interface to Perl's built-in getserv*() functions

SYNOPSIS

        use Net::servent;
        $s = getservbyname(shift || 'ftp') || die "no service";
        printf "port for %s is %s, aliases are %s\n",
           $s->name, $s->port, "@{$s->aliases}";

        use Net::servent qw(:FIELDS);
        getservbyname(shift || 'ftp') || die "no service";
        print "port for $s_name is $s_port, aliases are @s_aliases\n";

DESCRIPTION

       This module's default exports override the core getservent(), getservbyname(), and
       getnetbyport() functions, replacing them with versions that return "Net::servent" objects.
       They take default second arguments of "tcp".  This object has methods that return the
       similarly named structure field name from the C's servent structure from netdb.h; namely
       name, aliases, port, and proto.  The aliases method returns an array reference, the rest
       scalars.

       You may also import all the structure fields directly into your namespace as regular
       variables using the :FIELDS import tag.  (Note that this still overrides your core
       functions.)  Access these fields as variables named with a preceding "s_".  Thus,
       "$serv_obj->name()" corresponds to $s_name if you import the fields.  Array references are
       available as regular array variables, so for example "@{ $serv_obj->aliases()}" would be
       simply @s_aliases.

       The getserv() function is a simple front-end that forwards a numeric argument to
       getservbyport(), and the rest to getservbyname().

       To access this functionality without the core overrides, pass the "use" an empty import
       list, and then access function functions with their full qualified names.  On the other
       hand, the built-ins are still available via the "CORE::" pseudo-package.

EXAMPLES

        use Net::servent qw(:FIELDS);

        while (@ARGV) {
            my ($service, $proto) = ((split m!/!, shift), 'tcp');
            my $valet = getserv($service, $proto);
            unless ($valet) {
                warn "$0: No service: $service/$proto\n"
                next;
            }
            printf "service $service/$proto is port %d\n", $valet->port;
            print "alias are @s_aliases\n" if @s_aliases;
        }

NOTE

       While this class is currently implemented using the Class::Struct module to build a
       struct-like class, you shouldn't rely upon this.

AUTHOR

       Tom Christiansen