NAME

fileno - return file descriptor from filehandle

SYNOPSIS

fileno FILEHANDLE

DESCRIPTION

Returns the file descriptor for a filehandle. This is useful for constructing bitmaps for select() and low-level POSIX tty-handling operations. If FILEHANDLE is an expression, the value is taken as an indirect filehandle, generally its name.

You can use this to find out whether two handles refer to the same underlying descriptor:

    if (fileno(THIS) == fileno(THAT)) {
        print "THIS and THAT are dups\n";
    }

DISCLAIMER

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--Tom Christiansen, Perl Documentation Compiler and Editor

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