NAME

POSIX - Perl interface to IEEE 1003.1 namespace

SYNOPSIS

        use POSIX;
        use POSIX 'strftime';

DESCRIPTION

The POSIX module permits you to access all (or nearly all) the standard POSIX 1003.1 identifiers. Things which are #defines in C, like EINTR or O_NDELAY, are automatically exported into your namespace. All functions are only exported if you ask for them explicitly. Most likely people will prefer to use the fully-qualified function names.

To get a list of all the possible identifiers available to you--and their semantics--you should pick up a 1003.1 spec, or look in the F

EXAMPLES

        printf "EENTR is %d\n", EINTR;

        POSIX::setsid(0);

        $fd = POSIX::open($path, O_CREAT|O_EXCL|O_WRONLY, 0644);
            # note: that's a filedescriptor, *NOT* a filehandle

NOTE

The POSIX module is probably the most complex Perl module supplied with the standard distribution. It incorporates autoloading, namespace games, and dynamic loading of code that's in Perl, C, or both. It's a great source of wisdom.

CAVEATS

A few functions are not implemented because they are C specific. If you attempt to call these, they will print a message telling you that they aren't implemented because they're, supplying the Perl equivalent if one exists. For example, trying to access the setjmp() call will elicit the message "setjmp() is C-specific: use eval {} instead".

Furthermore, some evil vendors will claim 1003.1 compliance, but in fact are not so: they will not pass the PCTS (POSIX Compliance Test Suites). For example, one vendor may not define EDEADLK, or the semantics of the errno values set by open(2) might not be quite right. Perl does not attempt to verify POSIX compliance. That means you can currently successfully say "use POSIX", and then later in your program you find that your vendor has been lax and there's no usable ICANON macro after all. This could be construed to be a bug.