NAME

       Test::Builder::IO::Scalar - A copy of IO::Scalar for Test::Builder

DESCRIPTION

       This is a copy of IO::Scalar which ships with Test::Builder to support scalar references
       as filehandles on Perl 5.6.  Newer versions of Perl simply use "open()"'s built in
       support.

       Test::Builder can not have dependencies on other modules without careful consideration, so
       its simply been copied into the distribution.

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE

       This file came from the "IO-stringy" Perl5 toolkit.

       Copyright (c) 1996 by Eryq.  All rights reserved.  Copyright (c) 1999,2001 by ZeeGee
       Software Inc.  All rights reserved.

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

   Construction
       new [ARGS...]
           Class method.  Return a new, unattached scalar handle.  If any arguments are given,
           they're sent to open().

       open [SCALARREF]
           Instance method.  Open the scalar handle on a new scalar, pointed to by SCALARREF.  If
           no SCALARREF is given, a "private" scalar is created to hold the file data.

           Returns the self object on success, undefined on error.

       opened
           Instance method.  Is the scalar handle opened on something?

       close
           Instance method.  Disassociate the scalar handle from its underlying scalar.  Done
           automatically on destroy.

   Input and output
       flush
           Instance method.  No-op, provided for OO compatibility.

       getc
           Instance method.  Return the next character, or undef if none remain.

       getline
           Instance method.  Return the next line, or undef on end of string.  Can safely be
           called in an array context.  Currently, lines are delimited by "\n".

       getlines
           Instance method.  Get all remaining lines.  It will croak() if accidentally called in
           a scalar context.

       print ARGS...
           Instance method.  Print ARGS to the underlying scalar.

           Warning: this continues to always cause a seek to the end of the string, but if you
           perform seek()s and tell()s, it is still safer to explicitly seek-to-end before
           subsequent print()s.

       read BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
           Instance method.  Read some bytes from the scalar.  Returns the number of bytes
           actually read, 0 on end-of-file, undef on error.

       write BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
           Instance method.  Write some bytes to the scalar.

       sysread BUF, LEN, [OFFSET]
           Instance method.  Read some bytes from the scalar.  Returns the number of bytes
           actually read, 0 on end-of-file, undef on error.

       syswrite BUF, NBYTES, [OFFSET]
           Instance method.  Write some bytes to the scalar.

   Seeking/telling and other attributes
       autoflush
           Instance method.  No-op, provided for OO compatibility.

       binmode
           Instance method.  No-op, provided for OO compatibility.

       clearerr
           Instance method.  Clear the error and EOF flags.  A no-op.

       eof Instance method.  Are we at end of file?

       seek OFFSET, WHENCE
           Instance method.  Seek to a given position in the stream.

       sysseek OFFSET, WHENCE
           Instance method. Identical to "seek OFFSET, WHENCE", q.v.

       tell
           Instance method.  Return the current position in the stream, as a numeric offset.

       use_RS [YESNO]
           Instance method.  Deprecated and ignored.  Obey the current setting of $/, like
           IO::Handle does?  Default is false in 1.x, but cold-welded true in 2.x and later.

       setpos POS
           Instance method.  Set the current position, using the opaque value returned by
           "getpos()".

       getpos
           Instance method.  Return the current position in the string, as an opaque object.

       sref
           Instance method.  Return a reference to the underlying scalar.

WARNINGS

       Perl's TIEHANDLE spec was incomplete prior to 5.005_57; it was missing support for
       "seek()", "tell()", and "eof()".  Attempting to use these functions with an IO::Scalar
       will not work prior to 5.005_57. IO::Scalar will not have the relevant methods invoked;
       and even worse, this kind of bug can lie dormant for a while.  If you turn warnings on
       (via $^W or "perl -w"), and you see something like this...

           attempt to seek on unopened filehandle

       ...then you are probably trying to use one of these functions on an IO::Scalar with an old
       Perl.  The remedy is to simply use the OO version; e.g.:

           $SH->seek(0,0);    ### GOOD: will work on any 5.005
           seek($SH,0,0);     ### WARNING: will only work on 5.005_57 and beyond

VERSION

       $Id: Scalar.pm,v 1.6 2005/02/10 21:21:53 dfs Exp $

AUTHORS

   Primary Maintainer
       David F. Skoll (dfs@roaringpenguin.com).

   Principal author
       Eryq (eryq@zeegee.com).  President, ZeeGee Software Inc (http://www.zeegee.com).

   Other contributors
       The full set of contributors always includes the folks mentioned in "CHANGE LOG" in
       IO::Stringy.  But just the same, special thanks to the following individuals for their
       invaluable contributions (if I've forgotten or misspelled your name, please email me!):

       Andy Glew, for contributing "getc()".

       Brandon Browning, for suggesting "opened()".

       David Richter, for finding and fixing the bug in "PRINTF()".

       Eric L. Brine, for his offset-using read() and write() implementations.

       Richard Jones, for his patches to massively improve the performance of "getline()" and add
       "sysread" and "syswrite".

       B. K. Oxley (binkley), for stringification and inheritance improvements, and sundry good
       ideas.

       Doug Wilson, for the IO::Handle inheritance and automatic tie-ing.

SEE ALSO

       IO::String, which is quite similar but which was designed more-recently and with an
       IO::Handle-like interface in mind, so you could mix OO- and native-filehandle usage
       without using tied().

       Note: as of version 2.x, these classes all work like their IO::Handle counterparts, so we
       have comparable functionality to IO::String.