=head1 NAME

Symbol - manipulate Perl symbols and their names

=head1 SYNOPSIS

    use Symbol;

    $sym = gensym;
    open($sym, "filename");
    $_ = <$sym>;
    # etc.

    ungensym $sym;      # no effect

    # replace *FOO{IO} handle but not $FOO, %FOO, etc.
    *FOO = geniosym;

    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

    use strict refs;
    print { qualify_to_ref $fh } "foo!\n";
    $ref = qualify_to_ref $name, $pkg;

    use Symbol qw(delete_package);
    delete_package('Foo::Bar');
    print "deleted\n" unless exists $Foo::{'Bar::'};

=head1 DESCRIPTION

C<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, C<Symbol::ungensym> is also provided.
But it doesn't do anything.

C<Symbol::geniosym> creates an anonymous IO handle.  This can be
assigned into an existing glob without affecting the non-IO portions
of the glob.

C<Symbol::qualify> turns unqualified symbol names into qualified
variable names (e.g. "myvar" -E<gt> "MyPackage::myvar").  If it is given a
second parameter, C<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 qualified 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.

C<Symbol::qualify_to_ref> is just like C<Symbol::qualify> except that it
returns a glob ref rather than a symbol name, so you can use the result
even if C<use strict 'refs'> is in effect.

C<Symbol::delete_package> wipes out a whole package namespace.  Note
this routine is not exported by default--you may want to import it
explicitly.

=head1 BUGS

C<Symbol::delete_package> is a bit too powerful. It undefines every symbol that
lives in the specified package. Since perl, for performance reasons, does not
perform a symbol table lookup each time a function is called or a global
variable is accessed, some code that has already been loaded and that makes use
of symbols in package C<Foo> may stop working after you delete C<Foo>, even if
you reload the C<Foo> module afterwards.

=cut
