Symbol

# NAME

Symbol - manipulate Perl symbols and their names

# SYNOPSIS

        use Symbol;
        $sym = gensym;
        open($sym, "filename");
        $_ = <$sym>;
        # etc.
        ungensym $sym;      # no effect
        print qualify("x"), "\n";              # "Test::x"
        print qualify("x", "FOO"), "\n"        # "FOO::x"
        print qualify("BAR::x"), "\n";         # "BAR::x"
        print qualify("BAR::x", "FOO"), "\n";  # "BAR::x"
        print qualify("STDOUT", "FOO"), "\n";  # "main::STDOUT" (global)
        print qualify(\*x), "\n";              # returns \*x
        print qualify(\*x, "FOO"), "\n";       # returns \*x

# DESCRIPTION

`Symbol::gensym` creates an anonymous glob and returns a reference to it. Such a glob reference can be used as a file or directory handle.

For backward compatibility with older implementations that didn't support anonymous globs, `Symbol::ungensym` is also provided. But it doesn't do anything.

`Symbol::qualify` turns unqualified symbol names into qualified variable names (e.g. ``myvar'' -> ``MyPackage::myvar''). If it is given a second parameter, `qualify` uses it as the default package; otherwise, it uses the package of its caller. Regardless, global variable names (e.g. ``STDOUT'', ``ENV'', ``SIG'') are always qualfied with ``main::''.

Qualification applies only to symbol names (strings). References are left unchanged under the assumption that they are glob references, which are qualified by their nature.