ext::PerlIO::scalPerlsProgrammers ext::PerlIO::scalar::scalar(3p)
PerlIO::scalar - in-memory IO, scalar IO
my $scalar = ''; ... open my $fh, "<", \$scalar or die; open my $fh, ">", \$scalar or die; open my $fh, ">>", \$scalar or die; or my $scalar = ''; ... open my $fh, "<:scalar", \$scalar or die; open my $fh, ">:scalar", \$scalar or die; open my $fh, ">>:scalar", \$scalar or die;
A filehandle is opened but the file operations are performed "in-memory" on a scalar variable. All the normal file operations can be performed on the handle. The scalar is considered a stream of bytes. Currently fileno($fh) returns "undef".
"PerlIO::scalar" only exists to use XSLoader to load C code that provides support for treating a scalar as an "in memory" file. One does not need to explicitly "use PerlIO::scalar". perl v5.8.8 2005-02-05 1