NAME

OS2::PrfDB - Perl extension for access to OS/2 setting database.

SYNOPSIS

  use OS2::PrfDB;
  tie %settings, OS2::PrfDB, 'my.ini';
  tie %subsettings, OS2::PrfDB::Sub, 'my.ini', 'mykey';

  print "$settings{firstkey}{subkey}\n";
  print "$subsettings{subkey}\n";

  tie %system, OS2::PrfDB, SystemIni;
  $system{myapp}{mykey} = "myvalue";

DESCRIPTION

The extension provides both high-level and low-level access to .ini files.

High level access

High-level access is the tie-hash access via two packages: OS2::PrfDB and OS2::PrfDB::Sub. First one supports one argument, the name of the file to open, the second one the name of the file to open and so called Application name, or the primary key of the database.

  tie %settings, OS2::PrfDB, 'my.ini';
  tie %subsettings, OS2::PrfDB::Sub, 'my.ini', 'mykey';

One may substitute a handle for already opened ini-file instead of the file name (obtained via low-level access functions). In particular, 3 functions SystemIni(), UserIni(), and AnyIni() provide handles to the "systemish" databases. AniIni will read from both, and write into User database.

Low-level access

Low-level access functions reside in the package OS2::Prf. They are

Open(file): Opens the database, returns an integer handle.
Close(hndl): Closes the database given an integer handle.
Get(hndl, appname, key): Retrieves data from the database given 2-part-key appname key. If key is undef, return the "\0" delimited list of keys, terminated by \0. If appname is undef, returns the list of possible appnames in the same form.
GetLength(hndl, appname, key): Same as above, but returns the length of the value.
Set(hndl, appname, key, value [ , length ]): Sets the value. If the value is not defined, removes the key. If the key is not defined, removes the appname.
System(val): Return an integer handle associated with the system database. If val is 1, it is User database, if 2, System database, if 0, handle for "both" of them: the handle works for read from any one, and for write into User one.
Profiles(): returns a reference to a list of two strings, giving names of the User and System databases.
SetUser(file): (Not tested.) Sets the profile name of the User database. The application should have a message queue to use this function!

Integer handles

To convert a name or an integer handle into an object acceptable as argument to tie() interface, one may use the following functions from the package OS2::Prf::Hini:

new(package, file)
new_from_int(package, int_hndl [ , filename ])

Exports

SystemIni(), UserIni(), and AnyIni().

AUTHOR

Ilya Zakharevich, ilya@math.ohio-state.edu

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