use File::Copy;
copy("file1","file2"); copy("Copy.pm",\*STDOUT);' move("/dev1/fileA","/dev2/fileB");
use POSIX; use File::Copy cp;
$n=FileHandle->new("/dev/null","r"); cp($n,"x");'
Note that passing in files as handles instead of names may lead to loss of information on some operating systems; it is recommended that you use file names whenever possible. Files are opened in binary mode where applicable. To get a consistent behavour when copying from a filehandle to a file, use binmode on the filehandle.
An optional third parameter can be used to specify the buffer size used for copying. This is the number of bytes from the first file, that wil be held in memory at any given time, before being written to the second file. The default buffer size depends upon the file, but will generally be the whole file (up to 2Mb), or 1k for filehandles that do not reference files (eg. sockets).
You may use the syntax use File::Copy "cp" to get at the
``cp'' alias for this function. The syntax is exactly the same.
If possible, move() will simply rename the file. Otherwise, it copies the file to the new location and deletes the original. If an error occurs during this copy-and-delete process, you may be left with a (possibly partial) copy of the file under the destination name.
You may use the ``mv'' alias for this function in the same way that you may use the ``cp'' alias for copy.
File::Copy also provides the syscopy routine, which copies the file specified in the first parameter to the file specified in the second parameter, preserving OS-specific attributes and file structure. For Unix systems, this is equivalent to the simple copy routine. For VMS systems, this calls the rmscopy routine (see below). For OS/2 systems, this calls the syscopy XSUB directly.
The system copy routine may also be called directly under VMS and OS/2
as File::Copy::syscopy (or under VMS as File::Copy::rmscopy, which
is the routine that does the actual work for syscopy).
A new version of the output file is always created, which inherits the structure and RMS attributes of the input file, except for owner and protections (and possibly timestamps; see below). All data from the input file is copied to the output file; if either of the first two parameters to rmscopy is a file handle, its position is unchanged. (Note that this means a file handle pointing to the output file will be associated with an old version of that file after rmscopy returns, not the newly created version.)
The third parameter is an integer flag, which tells rmscopy how to handle timestamps. If it is < 0, none of the input file's timestamps are propagated to the output file. If it is > 0, then it is interpreted as a bitmask: if bit 0 (the LSB) is set, then timestamps other than the revision date are propagated; if bit 1 is set, the revision date is propagated. If the third parameter to rmscopy is 0, then it behaves much like the DCL COPY command: if the name or type of the output file was explicitly specified, then no timestamps are propagated, but if they were taken implicitly from the input filespec, then all timestamps other than the revision date are propagated. If this parameter is not supplied, it defaults to 0.
Like copy, rmscopy returns 1 on success. If an error occurs, it sets $!, deletes the output file, and returns 0.