diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'pod/perldata.pod')
| -rw-r--r-- | pod/perldata.pod | 27 |
1 files changed, 18 insertions, 9 deletions
diff --git a/pod/perldata.pod b/pod/perldata.pod index f4c660d622..067c6d9bd5 100644 --- a/pod/perldata.pod +++ b/pod/perldata.pod @@ -327,15 +327,24 @@ The special literals __FILE__, __LINE__, and __PACKAGE__ represent the current filename, line number, and package name at that point in your program. They may be used only as separate tokens; they will not be interpolated into strings. If there is no current package -(due to an empty C<package;> directive), __PACKAGE__ is the undefined value. - -The tokens __END__ and __DATA__ may be used to indicate the logical -end of the script before the actual end of file. Any following -text is ignored, but may be read via a DATA filehandle: main::DATA -for __END__, or PACKNAME::DATA (where PACKNAME is the current -package) for __DATA__. The two control characters ^D and ^Z are -synonyms for __END__ in the main program, __DATA__ in a separate -module. See L<SelfLoader> for more description of __DATA__, and +(due to an empty C<package;> directive), __PACKAGE__ is the undefined +value. + +The two control characters ^D and ^Z, and the tokens __END__ and __DATA__ +may be used to indicate the logical end of the script before the actual +end of file. Any following text is ignored. + +Text after __DATA__ but may be read via the filehandle C<PACKNAME::DATA>, +where C<PACKNAME> is the package that was current when the __DATA__ +token was encountered. The filehandle is left open pointing to the +contents after __DATA__. It is the program's responsibility to +C<close DATA> when it is done reading from it. For compatibility with +older scripts written before __DATA__ was introduced, __END__ behaves +like __DATA__ in the toplevel script (but not in files loaded with +C<require> or C<do>) and leaves the remaining contents of the +file accessible via C<main::DATA>. + +See L<SelfLoader> for more description of __DATA__, and an example of its use. Note that you cannot read from the DATA filehandle in a BEGIN block: the BEGIN block is executed as soon as it is seen (during compilation), at which point the corresponding |