oracular (3) Perl6::Say.3pm.gz

NAME

       Perl6::Say - "print()", but no newline needed

SYNOPSIS

           # Perl 5 code...

           use Perl6::Say;

           say 'boo';             # same as:  print 'boo', "\n"

           say STDERR 'boo';      # same as:  print STDERR 'boo', "\n"

           STDERR->say('boo');    # same as:  print STDERR 'boo', \n"

           $fh->say('boo');       # same as:  print $fh 'boo', "\n";

           say();                 # same as:  print "$_\n";

           say undef;             # same as:  print "\n";

DESCRIPTION

   Note for Users of Perl 5.10
       You don't need this module.  The Perl 6 "say" function is available in Perl 5.10 by saying "use feature
       'say';".  Hence, this module is of interest only to users of Perl 5.6 and 5.8.

       If you have Perl 5.10 installed, see the 510/ directory in this distribution for some elementary examples
       of "say" taken from "perldoc feature".

   General
       Implements a close simulation of the "say" function in Perl 6, which acts like "print" but automatically
       appends a newline.

       Use it just like "print" (except that it only supports the indirect object syntax when the stream is a
       bareword). That is, assuming the relevant filehandles are open for output, you can use any of these:

           say @data;
           say FH @data;
           FH->say(@data);
           *FH->say(@data);
           (\*FH)->say(@data);
           say $fh, @data;
           $fh->say(@data);

       but not any of these:

           say {FH} @data;
           say {*FH} @data;
           say {\*FH} @data;
           say $fh @data;
           say {$fh} @data;

   Additional Permitted Usages
       As demonstrated in the test suite accompanying this distribution, "Perl6::Say::say()" can be used in all
       the following situations.

           $string = q{};
           open FH, ">", \$string;
           say FH qq{Hello World};            # print to a string
           close FH;                          # requires Perl 5.8.0 or later

           use FileHandle;
           $fh = FileHandle->new($file, 'w');
           if (defined $fh) {
               say $fh, qq{Hello World};
               $fh->close;
           }

           use IO::File;
           $fh = IO::File->new($file, 'w');
           if (defined $fh) {
               say $fh, qq{Hello World};
               $fh->close;
           }

           $string = q{};
           open FH, ">", \$string;             # requires Perl 5.8.0 or later
           select(FH);
           say qq{Hello World};
           close FH;

   Interaction with Output Record Separator
       In Perl 6, "say @stuff" is exactly equivalent to "Core::print @stuff, "\n"".

       That means that a call to "say" appends any output record separator (ORS) after the added newline (though
       in Perl 6, the ORS is an attribute of the filehandle being used, rather than a global $/ variable).

   "IO::Handle::say()"
       IO::Handle version 1.27 or later (which, confusingly, is found in IO distribution 1.23 and later) also
       implements a "say" method.   Perl6::Say provides its own "say" method to IO::Handle if "IO::Handle::say"
       is not available.

   Usage with Older Perls
       As noted above, some aspects of "Perl6::Say::say()" will not work with versions of Perl earlier than
       5.8.0.  This is not due to any problem with this module; it is simply that Perl did not support printing
       to an in-memory file ("print \$string, "\n";") prior to that point.  (Thanks to a CPAN testers report
       from David Cantrell for identifying this limitation.)

WARNING

       The syntax and semantics of Perl 6 is still being finalized and consequently is at any time subject to
       change. That means the same caveat applies to this module.

DEPENDENCIES

       No dependencies other than on modules included with the Perl core as of version 5.8.0.

       Some of the files in the test suite accompanying this distribution use non-core CPAN module
       IO::Capture::Stdout.  Tests calling IO::Capture::Stdout methods are enclosed in "SKIP" blocks and so
       should pose no obstacle to installation of the distribution on systems lacking IO::Capture.  (However,
       the maintainer strongly recommends IO::Capture for developers who write a lot of test code.  So please
       consider installing it!)

AUTHOR and MAINTAINER

   AUTHOR
       Damian Conway (damian@conway.org).

   MAINTAINER
       Alexandr Ciornii (alexchorny@gmail.com)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

       Thanks to Damian Conway for dreaming this up.  Thanks to David A Golden for a close review of the
       documentation.  Thanks to CPAN tester Jost Krieger for reporting an error in my SKIP block count in one
       test file.

BUGS AND IRRITATIONS

       As far as we can determine, Perl 5 doesn't allow us to create a subroutine that truly acts like "print".
       That is, one that can simultaneously be used like so:

           say @data;

       and like so:

           say {$fh} @data;

       Comments, suggestions, and patches welcome.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2004, Damian Conway. All Rights Reserved.  This module is free software. It may be used,
       redistributed and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself.