Re: How to pass file handles?

[Tye McQueen]

Well, another alternative is to use plain old file descriptors
in your XS code and have your module wrap that code in a Perl
sub that converts to/from a file handle.  Something like:

sub input {
    my( $fh )= shift;
    $fh= caller()."::".$fh
        if  ! ref($fh)  &&  $fh !~ /[':]/;
    my $fd= fileno($fh);
    croak "Invalid file handle ($fh).\n"
        if  ! defined $fd;
    input_xs( $fd );
}

sub output {
    my $fd= output_xs();
    my $fh= do { local(*FILE); \*FILE };
    open $fh, "<&=$fd"
        or   die "Can't fdopen $fd: $!\n";
}

Otherwise your XS code is probably going to have to get
rather complex in order to detect and deal with all of
the different possible types of file handles:

    strings (where you may need to prepend a package)
    globs
    refs to globs (includes objects)

Tye