perl-IO-All

IO::All combines all of the best Perl IO modules into a single nifty object oriented interface to greatly simplify your everyday Perl IO idioms. It exports a single function called 'io', which returns a new IO::All object. And that object can do it all! The IO::All object is a proxy for IO::File, IO::Dir, IO::Socket, Tie::File, File::Spec, File::Path, File::MimeInfo and File::ReadBackwards; as well as all the DBM and MLDBM modules. You can use most of the methods found in these classes and in IO::Handle (which they inherit from). IO::All adds dozens of other helpful idiomatic methods including file stat and manipulation functions. IO::All is pluggable, and modules like IO::All::LWP and IO::All::Mailto add even more functionality. Optionally, every IO::All object can be tied to itself. This means that you can use most perl IO builtins on it: readline, '<>', getc, print, printf, syswrite, sysread, close. The distinguishing magic of IO::All is that it will automatically open (and close) files, directories, sockets and other IO things for you. You never need to specify the mode ('<', '>>', etc), since it is determined by the usage context. That means you can replace this: open STUFF, '<', './mystuff' or die "Can't open './mystuff' for input:\n$!"; local $/; my $stuff = <STUFF>; close STUFF; with this: my $stuff < io './mystuff'; And that is a *good thing*!