Path::Class - Cross-platform path specification manipulation

- NAME
- VERSION
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
  - EXPORT
- Notes on Cross-Platform Compatibility
- AUTHOR
- COPYRIGHT
- SEE ALSO

# NAME

Path::Class - Cross-platform path specification manipulation

# VERSION

version 0.37

# 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: $!";

# DESCRIPTION

`Path::Class` is a 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.

## EXPORT

The following functions are exported by default.

file

  A synonym for `Path::Class::File->new`.

dir

  A synonym for `Path::Class::Dir->new`.

If you would like to prevent their export, you may explicitly pass an empty list to perl's `use`, i.e. `use Path::Class ()`.

The following are exported only on demand.

foreign_file

  A synonym for `Path::Class::File->new_foreign`.

foreign_dir

  A synonym for `Path::Class::Dir->new_foreign`.

tempdir

  Create a new Path::Class::Dir instance pointed to temporary directory.

      my $temp = Path::Class::tempdir(CLEANUP => 1);

  A synonym for `Path::Class::Dir->new(File::Temp::tempdir(@_))`.

# Notes on Cross-Platform Compatibility

Although it is much easier to write cross-platform-friendly code with this module than with `File::Spec`, there are still some issues to be aware of.

- On some platforms, notably VMS and some older versions of DOS (I think), all filenames must have an extension. Thus if you create a file called foo/bar and then ask for a list of files in the directory foo, you may find a file called bar. instead of the bar you were expecting. Thus it might be a good idea to use an extension in the first place.

# AUTHOR

Ken Williams, KWILLIAMS@cpan.org

# COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) Ken Williams. All rights reserved.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

# SEE ALSO

Path::Class::Dir, Path::Class::File, File::Spec

Path::Class - Cross-platform path specification manipulation