Top-of-page format: STDOUT_TOP??
Bjorn Larsen
In the man page for Perl 4.010, I find:
> record is written. By default the top-of-page for-
> mat is "top", but it may be set to the format of
> your choice by assigning the name to the $^ vari-
> able. The number of lines remaining on the current
and
> $^ The name of the current top-of-page format for the
> currently selected output channel. Default is name
> of the filehandle with "_TOP" appended. (Mnemonic:
> points to top of page.)
Now, this is what I have managed to get out of this:
- If you write to filehandle F, and the format 'F_TOP' is defined,
then that is used. Otherwise, the format 'top' is used, if it
exists.
- If you write to filehandle STDOUT, the format 'top' is used.
If the format 'STDOUT_TOP' exists, it is ignored.
Why handle STDOUT differently from other filehandles?
Bjorn
Larry Wall
:
: In the man page for Perl 4.010, I find:
It isn't different, which you can verify empirically:
format top =
top
.
format STDOUT_TOP =
TOP
.
format STDOUT =
OUT
.
write;
write;
The first chunk of man page was unclear. The $^ chunk was correct.
The "top" format is still grandfathered in, if FILEHANDLE_TOP isn't
defined, but consider "top" deprecated.
Never trust documentation.
Larry