


File::Copy(3p)   Perl Programmers Reference Guide  File::Copy(3p)


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.

       o   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 behaviour 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.

       o   The move function also takes two parameters: the
           current name and the intended name of the file to be



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File::Copy(3p)   Perl Programmers Reference Guide  File::Copy(3p)


           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 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 behaviour 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



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File::Copy(3p)   Perl Programmers Reference Guide  File::Copy(3p)


           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 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@newman.upenn.edu> in 1996.

























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