=encoding utf8
=head1 TITLE
DRAFT: Synopsis 16: IO / Name Services
=head1 AUTHORS
Largely, the authors of the related Perl 5 docs.
Larry Wall <larry@wall.org>
Mark Stosberg <mark@summersault.com>
Tim Nelson <wayland@wayland.id.au>
Daniel Ruoso <daniel@ruoso.com>
=head1 VERSION
Created: 12 Sep 2006
Last Modified: 19 Nov 2009
Version: 23
This is a draft document. Many of these functions will work as in Perl
5, except we're trying to rationalize everything into roles. For
now you can assume most of the important functions will automatically
be in the * namespace. However, with IO operations in particular,
many of them are really methods on an IO handle, and if there is a
corresponding global function, it's merely an exported version of
the method.
=head1 IO
=head2 Overridable IO handles
In Perl 6, there are the I<standard> IO handles, and any number of overriding
inner filehandles for the same symbol.
The I<standard> handles are our old familiar friends (with new names).
Standard input changed from STDIN to C<$*IN>, standard output changed
from STDOUT to C<$*OUT>, and standard error changed from STDERR to
C<$*ERR>. In Perl 6 these symbols represent more of a concept than
a given filehandle, since the meaning is contextually determined.
The process's version of these handles live in the C<PROCESS::>
namespace, which is more global than the per-interpreter C<GLOBAL::>
namespace.
When no explicit filehandle is used, the standard IO operators are
defined in terms of the dynamic variables. So the C<print> function
prints to C<$*OUT>, while C<warn> warns to C<$*ERR>. The C<< lines() >>
term inputs from C<$*ARGFILES> which defaults to C<$*IN> in the absence of any
filenames. So any given dynamic scope (interpreter,
thread, function or method call) may redefine the current meaning of
any of those filehandles within the dynamic scope of itself and of
its called routines.
So to put it another way, when you write something like
say "Howdy, world!"
the C<say> function looks for the current meaning of C<$*OUT>, and
takes the closest definition it can find in its callers. If none
of the callers have overridden the definition, it looks in the
interpreter's C<GLOBAL> namespace. If the interpreter hasn't overridden
the meaning, it takes the meaning from C<PROCESS>. In essence, any
dynamic scope in Perl 6 is allowed to do IO redirection much like
a Unix shell does with its subprocesses, albeit with a different
syntax:
{
temp $*OUT = open $newfile, :w;
foo() # all stdout goes to $newfile
}
# stdout reverts to outer scope's definition
=head2 Roles and Classes
The roles and classes that define most of the functionality for IO are defined in
S32-setting-library/IO.pod. The main functions used are listed in S29 with references to
S32-setting-library/IO.pod.
=head2 Special Quoting Syntax
The use of filenames requires a special quoting syntax. It works as follows:
qp{/path/to/file}
q:p{/path/to/file}
Both of the above result in the same thing.
The quote characters can be any of the usual ones, although / is probably a bad choice
for filenames.
The code shown above returns a Path object (or a descendant thereof).
Naturally you can also ask for interpolation in filenames:
qp:qq{$directory/$file}
qq:p{$directory/$file}
There are a number of special adverbs that can be applied to the file quoting
operator. Most of these are filesystem-specific. They confine what can be
included in a filename.
Any path that starts with a "/" is considered an absolute path, otherwise
the path is considered relative.
When creating a path with qp{}, the Path.Encoding attribute is set to $?ENC, unless
the :bin modifier (see below) is used.
=head3 Default constraints
The default constraints can be set with the "use path" pragma, for example:
use path :posix;
use path :modern;
use path :local;
The default when in strict mode is "use path :posix", whereas the default in
lax mode is "use path :local".
=head3 :posix constraints
The :modern set of constraints paths are portable POSIX paths (see POSIX.1-2008 sections
4.7 and 3.276). If platform/filesystem specific behavior is needed,
specific constraints should be applied as needed (see below).
The default constraints are to only allow "/" as separator and only allows
portable POSIX filenames. That means A-Z, a-z, 0-9, <period>, <underscore>,
and <hyphen>. Additionally, hyphen may not be the first character in the path.
Any path that starts with a "/" is considered an absolute path, otherwise
the path is considered relative.
=head3 :portable
In addition to the POSIX constraints above, the path should fit into 8
characters, followed by a full stop, and then three more characters. Only
the one full stop should appear in the filename. Additionally, no path
may be longer than 64 characters.
=head3 :local
This is :win on a Windows platform, :unix on a Unix platform, etc. Note
that this is specifically not portable between platforms with different
constraint sets.
=head3 :modern constraints
The :modern set of constraints are the same as :posix, except that they
may contain any UTF-8 character, rather than just those listed.
=head3 :win constraints
We allow Windows style paths so converting and maintaining code on this
platform is not a pain.
my Path $path = p:win{C:\Program Files\MS Access\file.file};
Note that this specifically excludes the backslash quoting usually used with
q{}.
=head3 :unix constraints
For Unix specific behavior we have a p:unix{} literal. Here the only
limits are what is defined by the locale and the filesystem type. So we won't
be able to write full Unicode if locale is set to Latin1.
my Path $path = p:unix{/usr/src/bla/myfile?:%.file};
=head3 :bin constraints (no constraints at all)
If the above are causing problems, p:bin{} can be used as no checking is
done here. However, this leaves the Path.Encoding attribute undefined, which
means that certain features of Path will remain unavailable unless this
attribute is set.
=head3 Other constraints
It is expected that other sets of constraints, such as VMS, DOS, and old-style
Mac will be provided by modules.
=head2 $*CWD
The global variable $*CWD is a Path object with certain special properties,
mainly:
* It must check whether the path exists before changing its value
* It can only be assigned an absolute path; if you want to make relative
changes, use the Array interface
$*CWD is specific to the current thread, unlike C<< %*ENVZ<><PATH> >> or the
native getcwd/chdir path, which are both usually process-wide.
The variable is used in at least these cases:
* When a Path object is created, if the string it is given is not an
absolute path, then $*CWD is prepended to it.
* When a subprocess is executed, it is executed with the current
thread's $*CWD as its working directory.
=head1 Name Services
=head2 User role
role User {
has $username; # Username (some descendants(?) may want to implement a real $name)
has $id; # User ID
has $dir; # Home directory for files
}
=over
=item new
method User new($Username?, $UID?) {...}
Creates a new User object, fetching the information either by username or user ID.
=item write
method write() {...}
Tries to write the current User object to the user database. This may well fail.
=item Str
When converted to a Str, returns $username.
=item Num
When converted to a Num, returns $uid.
=back
=head2 OS::Unix::User role
role OS::Unix::User does User {
has $password;
has $gid;
has $gecos;
has $shell;
}
All the information is naturally fetched from the system via getpwuid, getpwnam, or the
like.
=head2 Group role
role Group {
has $name;
has $id;
has @members;
}
=over
=item new
method Group new(:$Name, :$ID);
=item write
method write();
Tries to write the group entry into the system group database.
=back
=head2 OS::Unix::NameServices role
The NameServices role has a bunch of functions that between them will return the whole
Name Services database between them, as lists of objects. The lists are specifically
intended to be lazy.
role NameServices {
method List of User users() {...} # getpwent, setpwent, endpwent
method List of Group groups() {...} # getgrent, setgrent, endgrent
method List of Service services() {...} # getservent, setservent, endservent
method List of Protocol protocols() {...} # getprotoent, setprotoent, endprotoent
method List of Network networks() {...} # getnetent, setnetent, endnetent
method List of Host hosts() {...} # gethostent, sethostent, endhostent
}
=head1 Additions
Please post errors and feedback to perl6-language. If you are making
a general laundry list, please separate messages by topic.
=cut
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