NAME File::BOM - Utilities for reading Byte Order Marks SYNOPSIS use File::BOM qw( :all ) high-level functions # read a file with encoding from the BOM: *FH = open_bom($file) *FH = open_bom($file, ':utf8') # the same but with a default encoding # get encoding too (*FH, $encoding) = open_bom($file, ':utf8'); # open a potentially unseekable file: (*FH, $encoding, $spillage) = open_bom($file, ':utf8', 1); # slurp an encoded file my $text = eval { local $/ = undef; my $whole_file = ; decode_from_bom($whole_file, 'UTF-8', 1); } PerlIO::via interface # Read the Right Thing from a unicode file with BOM: open(HANDLE, '<:via(File::BOM)', $filename) # Writing little-endian UTF-16 file with BOM: open(HANDLE, '>:encoding(UTF-16LE):via(File::BOM)', $filename) lower-level functions # read BOM encoding from filehandle: open FH, '<:bytes', $some_file; $encoding = get_encoding_from_filehandle(*FH) # get encoding and BOM length from BOM at start of string: ($encoding, $offset) = get_encoding_from_bom($string); variables # print a BOM for a known encoding print FH $enc2bom{$encoding}; # get an encoding from a known BOM $enc = $bom2enc{$bom} EXPORTS Nothing by default. * open_bom() * decode_from_bom() * get_encoding_from_filehandle() * get_encoding_from_stream() * get_encoding_from_bom() * %bom2enc * %enc2bom * :all All of the above * :subs subroutines only * :vars just %bom2enc and %enc2bom VARIABLES %bom2enc Maps Byte Order marks to their encodings. See for details The keys of this hash are strings which represent the BOMs, the values are their encodings, in a format which is understood by Encode The encodings represented in this hash are: UTF-8, UTF-16BE, UTF-16LE, UTF-32BE and UTF-32LE %enc2bom A reverse-lookup hash for bom2enc, with a few aliases used in Encode, namely utf8, iso-10646-1 and UCS-2. Note that UTF-16, UTF-32 and UCS-4 are not included in this hash. Mainly because Encode::encode automatically puts BOMs on output. See Encode::Unicode FUNCTIONS open_bom *FH = open_bom($name, $default_mode, $try_unseekable) (*FH, $encoding, $spill) = open_bom($name, $default_mode, $try_unseekable) opens $name for reading, setting the mode to the appropriate encoding for the BOM stored in the file. If the file doesn't contain a BOM, $default_mode is used instead. Hence: open_bom('my_file.txt', ':utf8') Opens my_file.txt for reading in an appropriate encoding found from the BOM in that file, or as a UTF-8 file if none is found. If no default mode is specified and no BOM is found, the filehandle is opened using :bytes croaks on errors, returns the filehandle in scalar context or the filehandle and the encoding in list context. The filehandle will be cued up to read after the BOM. Unseekable files (e.g. sockets) will cause croaking, unless $try_unseekable is set in which case any spillage is returned after the encoding (in scalar context the spillage is lost!) Any spillage will automatically decoded from the found encoding, if found. e.g. # croak if my_socket is unseekable *FH = open_bom('my_socket') # keep spillage if my_socket is unseekable (*FH, $encoding, $spillage) = open_bom('my_socket', undef, 1); # discard spillage if my_socket is unseekable - not recommended *FH = open_bom('my_socket', undef, 1); decode_from_bom $unicode_string = decode_from_bom($string, $default, $check) ($unicode_string, $encoding) = decode_from_bom($string, $default, $check) Reads a BOM from the beginning of $string, decodes $string (minus the BOM) and returns it to you as a perl unicode string. if $string doesn't have a BOM, $default is used instead. $check, if supplied, is passed to Encode::decode If there's no BOM and no default, the original string is returned and encoding is ''. See Encode get_encoding_from_filehandle $encoding = get_encoding_from_filehandle(HANDLE) ($encoding, $spillage) = get_encoding_from_filehandle(HANDLE) Returns the encoding found in the given filehandle. The handle should be opened in a non-unicode way (e.g. mode '<:bytes') so that the BOM can be read in its natural state. After calling, the handle will be set to read at a point after the BOM (or at the beginning of the file if no BOM was found) If called in scalar context, unseekable handles cause a croak(). If called in list context, unseekable handles will be read byte-by-byte and any spillage will be returned. See get_encoding_from_stream() get_encoding_from_stream ($encoding, $spillage) = get_encoding_from_stream(*FH); Read a BOM from an unrewindable source. This means reading the stream one byte at a time until either a BOM is found or every possible BOM is ruled out. Any non-BOM characters read from the handle will be returned in $spillage. If a BOM is found and the spillage contains a partial character (judging by the expected character width for the encoding) more bytes will be read from the handle to ensure that a complete character is returned in spillage. This function is less efficient than get_encoding_from_filehandle, but should work just as well on a seekable handle as on an unseekable one. get_encoding_from_bom ($encoding, $offset) = get_encoding_from_bom($string) Returns the encoding and length in bytes of the BOM in $string. If there is no BOM, an empty string is returned and $offset is zero. To get the data from the string, the following should work: use Encode; my($encoding, $offset) = get_encoding_from_bom($string); if ($encoding) { $string = decode($encoding, substr($string, $offset)) } PerlIO::via interface File::BOM can be used as a PerlIO::via interface. open(HANDLE, '<:via(File::BOM)', 'my_file.txt'); open(HANDLE, '>:encoding(UTF-16LE):via(File::BOM):utf8', 'out_file.txt) print "foo\n"; # BOM is written to file here This method is less prone to errors on non-seekable files, but doesn't give you any information about the encoding being used, or indeed whether or not a BOM was present. Reading The via(File::BOM) layer must be added before the handle is read from, otherwise any BOM will be missed. If there is no BOM, no decoding will be done. Writing Add the via(File::BOM) layer on top of a unicode encoding layer to print a BOM at the start of the output file. This needs to be done before any data is written. The BOM is written as part of the first print command on the handle, so if you don't print anything to the handle, you won't get a BOM. At the time of writing there is a "Wide character in print" warning generated when the via(File::BOM) layer doesn't receive utf8 on writing. # This works OK open(FH, '>:encoding(UTF-16LE):via(File::BOM):utf8', $filename) # This generates warnings open(FH, '>:encoding(UTF-16LE):via(File::BOM)', $filename) This glitch may be resolved in future versions of File::BOM, or future versions of PerlIO::via. Seeking Seeking with SEEK_SET results in an offset equal to the length of any detected BOM being applied to the position parameter. Thus: # Seek to end of BOM (not start of file!) seek(FILE_BOM_HANDLE, 0, SEEK_SET) Versions previous to 0.07 do not support seeking at all. SEE ALSO * Encode * Encode::Unicode * DIAGNOSTICS The following exceptions are raised via croak(): * Couldn't read '': $! open_bom() couldn't open the given file for reading * Could't set binmode of handle opened on '' to '': $! open_bom() couldn't set the binmode of the handle * No string decode_from_bom called on an undefined value * Unseekable handle: $! get_encoding_from_filehandle() called on an unseekable handle in scalar context or open_bom() called on an unseekable file without the $try_unseekable argument set to true * Couldn't read from handle: $! _get_encoding_seekable() couldn't read the handle. This function is called from get_encoding_from_filehandle() and open_bom() * Couldn't reset read position: $! _get_encoding_seekable couldn't seek to the position after the BOM. * Couldn't read byte: $! get_encoding_from_stream couldn't read from the handle. This function is called from get_encoding_from_filehandle() and open_bom() when the handle or file is unseekable. BUGS The PerlIO::via interface has a few problems with writing, see above. Under windows, warnings may be generated when using the PerlIO::via interface to read UTF-16LE and UTF-32LE encoded files. This seems to be a bug in the relevant encoding(...) layers provided by Encode. AUTHOR Matt Lawrence