Path::Class Cross-platform path specification manipulation
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Perl module perl Path specification

Path::Class Description

Path::Class is a Perl module for manipulation of file and directory specifications (strings describing their locations, like '/home/ken/foo.txt' or 'C:\Windows\Foo.txt') in a cross-platform manner. It supports pretty much every platform Perl runs on, including Unix, Windows, Mac, VMS, Epoc, Cygwin, OS/2, and NetWare.The well-known module File::Spec also provides this service, but it's sort of awkward to use well, so people sometimes avoid it, or use it in a way that won't actually work properly on platforms significantly different than the ones they've tested their code on.In fact, Path::Class uses File::Spec internally, wrapping all the unsightly details so you can concentrate on your application code. Whereas File::Spec provides functions for some common path manipulations, Path::Class provides an object-oriented model of the world of path specifications and their underlying semantics. File::Spec doesn't create any objects, and its classes represent the different ways in which paths must be manipulated on various platforms (not a very intuitive concept). Path::Class creates objects representing files and directories, and provides methods that relate them to each other. For instance, the following File::Spec code: my $absolute = File::Spec->file_name_is_absolute( File::Spec->catfile( @dirs, $file ) );can be written using Path::Class as my $absolute = Path::Class::File->new( @dirs, $file )->is_absolute;or even as my $absolute = file( @dirs, $file )->is_absolute;Similar readability improvements should happen all over the place when using Path::Class.Using Path::Class can help solve real problems in your code too - for instance, how many people actually take the "volume" (like C: on Windows) into account when writing File::Spec-using code? I thought not. But if you use Path::Class, your file and directory objects will know what volumes they refer to and do the right thing.The guts of the Path::Class code live in the Path::Class::File and Path::Class::Dir modules, so please see those modules' documentation for more details about how to use them.SYNOPSIS use Path::Class; my $dir = dir('foo', 'bar'); # Path::Class::Dir object my $file = file('bob', 'file.txt'); # Path::Class::File object # Stringifies to 'foo/bar' on Unix, 'foo\bar' on Windows, etc. print "dir: $dir\n"; # Stringifies to 'bob/file.txt' on Unix, 'bob\file.txt' on Windows print "file: $file\n"; my $subdir = $dir->subdir('baz'); # foo/bar/baz my $parent = $subdir->parent; # foo/bar my $parent2 = $parent->parent; # foo my $dir2 = $file->dir; # bob # Work with foreign paths use Path::Class qw(foreign_file foreign_dir); my $file = foreign_file('Mac', ':foo:file.txt'); print $file->dir; # :foo: print $file->as_foreign('Win32'); # foo\file.txt # Interact with the underlying filesystem: # $dir_handle is an IO::Dir object my $dir_handle = $dir->open or die "Can't read $dir: $!"; # $file_handle is an IO::File object my $file_handle = $file->open($mode) or die "Can't read $file: $!";Product's homepage

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