• NAME
• SYNOPSIS
• DESCRIPTION

NAME

Symbol - manipulate Perl symbols and their names

SYNOPSIS

    use Symbol;

    $sym = gensym;
    open($sym, "filename");
    $_ = <$sym>;
    # etc.

    ungensym $sym;      # no effect

    print qualify("x"), "\n";              # "Test::x"
    print qualify("x", "FOO"), "\n"        # "FOO::x"
    print qualify("BAR::x"), "\n";         # "BAR::x"
    print qualify("BAR::x", "FOO"), "\n";  # "BAR::x"
    print qualify("STDOUT", "FOO"), "\n";  # "main::STDOUT" (global)
    print qualify(\*x), "\n";              # returns \*x
    print qualify(\*x, "FOO"), "\n";       # returns \*x

    use strict refs;
    print { qualify_to_ref $fh } "foo!\n";
    $ref = qualify_to_ref $name, $pkg;

    use Symbol qw(delete_package);
    delete_package('Foo::Bar');
    print "deleted\n" unless exists $Foo::{'Bar::'};

DESCRIPTION

Symbol::gensym creates an anonymous glob and returns a reference to it. Such a glob reference can be used as a file or directory handle.

For backward compatibility with older implementations that didn't support anonymous globs, Symbol::ungensym is also provided. But it doesn't do anything.

Symbol::qualify turns unqualified symbol names into qualified variable names (e.g. ``myvar'' -> ``MyPackage::myvar''). If it is given a second parameter, qualify uses it as the default package; otherwise, it uses the package of its caller. Regardless, global variable names (e.g. ``STDOUT'', ``ENV'', ``SIG'') are always qualfied with ``main::''.

Qualification applies only to symbol names (strings). References are left unchanged under the assumption that they are glob references, which are qualified by their nature.

Symbol::qualify_to_ref is just like Symbol::qualify except that it returns a glob ref rather than a symbol name, so you can use the result even if use strict 'refs' is in effect.

Symbol::delete_package wipes out a whole package namespace. Note this routine is not exported by default--you may want to import it explicitly.

DISCLAIMER

If rather than formatting bugs, you encounter substantive content errors in these documents, such as mistakes in the explanations or code, please use the perlbug utility included with the Perl distribution.

--Tom Christiansen, Perl Documentation Compiler and Editor