[perl #108278] -T STDIN hangs

On Tue, 14 Nov 2017 21:42:02 GMT, zefram@fysh.org wrote:
> A couple of points have been missed in this discussion.  Firstly, the
> willingness to read content from a non-regular file is not specific to
> performing the check on an open filehandle.  Perl is perfectly willing
> to read content from a non-regular file specified by name:
> 
> $ perl -lwe 'print -T "/dev/null" || 0; print -T "/dev/zero" || 0'
> 1
> 0
> 
> Secondly, there's been a bit of the mistaken idea that a non-regular
> file is somehow "not a file".  Looking at the documentation of the
> file test operators, it's clearly been written using Unix terminology,
> in which anything in the filesystem is a file:
> 
> #                  -f  File is a plain file.
> #                  -d  File is a directory.
> #                  -b  File is a block special file.
> 
> Given that understanding of what "file" means in this document, we can
> better interpret the documentation for -T and -B:
> 
> #                  -T  File is an ASCII or UTF-8 text file (heuristic
> guess).
> #                  -B  File is a "binary" file (opposite of -T).
> ...
> #              The "-T" and "-B" switches work as follows.  The first
> block or
> #              so of the file is examined to see if it is valid UTF-8
> that
> #              includes non-ASCII characters.  If, so it's a "-T"
> file.
> 
> It speaks of examining the content of "the file".  Doesn't say
> anything
> about it being a regular file.  Just like the documentation for -w et
> al doesn't say anything about the file being regular.  -w, -f, and -T
> are mutually orthogonal.
> 
> Clearly, reading from non-regular files is intentional behaviour,
> implemented consistently, and documented.  The choice of such a
> predicate
> for this short spelling may be a questionable language design
> decision,
> but it's too late to change that.  There isn't any viable case for
> changing the existing behaviour.  If you want a regular-text-file
> predicate, by all means write your own and stick it on CPAN.
> 
> This ticket should be closed.
> 
> -zefram

I attempted to wrap up discussion on this ticket and close it almost five years ago -- and failed!

So I'll take that recommendation and try to get it done for real now.  Closing.

Thank you very much.


-- 
James E Keenan (jkeenan@cpan.org)

---
via perlbug:  queue: perl5 status: open
https://rt.perl.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=108278

• [perl #108278] -T STDIN hangs by James E Keenan via RT