 
The base class for all other IO handle classes. Its main purpose is for the other IO classes to inherit from it; programs should not create IO::Handle objects directly. Provides the following methods.
| new | 
new
Constructor. Creates a new IO::Handle object.
| new_from_fd | 
new_from_fd (fd, mode)
Constructor. Like new, creates an IO::Handle object. It requires two parameters, which are passed to the method fdopen; if fdopen fails, the object is destroyed. Otherwise, it is returned to the caller.
| clearerr | 
$fh->clearerr
Clears the given handle's error indicator.
| error | 
$fh->error
Returns true if the given handle has experienced any errors since it was opened or since the last call to clearerr.
| fdopen | 
$fh->fdopen (fd, mode)
Like an ordinary open except that the first parameter is a filehandle name, an IO::Handle object, or a file descriptor number.
| flush | 
$fh->flush
Flushes the given handle's buffer.
| getline | 
$fh->getline
Works like <$fh>, described in the section on "I/O Operators" in the perlop manpage, but is more readable and can be safely called in an array context, while still returning one line.
| getlines | 
$fh->getlines
Works like <$fh> when called in an array context to read all the remaining lines in a file, but is more readable. croak s if called in scalar context.
| opened | 
$fh->opened
Returns true if the object is currently a valid file descriptor.
| ungetc | 
$fh->ungetc (ord)
Pushes a character with the ordinal value ord back onto the given handle's input stream.
| untaint | 
$fh->untaint
Special method for working under -T and setuid/gid scripts. Marks the object as taint-clean, and as such, data read from it is also considered taint-clean.
| write | 
$fh->write (buf, len[, offset])
Like write found in C; that is, the opposite of read. The wrapper for the Perl write function is format_write.
IO::Handle also provides the following methods, which are not described in detail here because they are simply frontends for the corresponding built-in functions. See Chapter 5, "Function Reference" for more information.
| Method | Description | 
|---|---|
| close | Closes file or pipe | 
| eof | Returns 1 if next read will return end-of-file | 
| fileno | Returns file descriptor for a filehandle | 
| getc | Returns next character from input file | 
|  | Prints a string or comma-separated list of strings | 
| printf | Prints a formatted string | 
| read | Reads data from a filehandle | 
| stat | Returns an array of status information for a file | 
| sysread | Reads data from a filehandle with system call read(2) | 
| syswrite | Writes data to a filehandle with system call write(2) | 
| truncate | Truncates a file to a specified length | 
Finally, the following methods act on the equivalent Perl variables. See Chapter 4, "The Perl Language" for more information.
| Method | Description | 
|---|---|
| autoflush | If nonzero, forces a flush now and after each write or print (default 0) | 
| format_page_number | Current page number | 
| format_lines_per_page | Current page length (default 60) | 
| format_lines_left | Number of lines left on page | 
| format_name | Name of current report format | 
| format_top_name | Name of current top-of-page format | 
| format_line_break_characters | Current set of linebreak chars for a format | 
| format_formfeed | Formfeed char used by formats (default \f) | 
| format_write | Wrapper for write function | 
| input_record_separator | Input record separator (default newline) | 
| input_line_number | Current input line number for last filehandle accessed | 
| output_field_separator | Output field separator for print | 
| output_record_separator | Output record separator for print | 
 
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