=head1 NAME

Imager::IO - Imager's io_layer object.

=head1 SYNOPSIS

  # Imager supplies Imager::IO objects to various callbacks
  my $IO = ...;

  my $count = $IO->write($data);
  my $count = $IO->read($buffer, $max_count);
  my $position = $IO->seek($offset, $whence);
  my $status = $IO->close;

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Imager uses an abstraction when dealing with image files to allow the
same code to work with disk files, in memory data and callbacks.

If you're writing an Imager file handler your code will be passed an
Imager::IO object to write to or read from.

=head1 METHODS

=over

=item write

Call to write to the file.  Returns the number of bytes written.  The
data provided may contain only characters \x00 to \xFF - characters
outside this range will cause this method to croak().

If you supply a UTF-8 flagged string it will be converted to a byte
string, which may have a performance impact.

Returns -1 on error, though in most cases if the result of the write
isn't the number of bytes supplied you'll want to treat it as an error
anyway.

=item read

  my $buffer;
  my $count = $io->read($buffer, $max_bytes);

Reads up to I<$max_bytes> bytes from the current position in the file
and stores them in I<$buffer>.  Returns the number of bytes read on
success or an empty list on failure.  Note that a read of zero bytes
is B<not> a failure, this indicates end of file.

=item read2

  my $buffer = $io->read2($max_bytes);

An alternative interface to read, that might be simpler to use in some
cases.

Returns the data read or an empty list.

=item seek

  my $new_position = $io->seek($offset, $whence);

Seek to a new position in the file.  Possible values for I<$whence> are:

=over

=item *

C<SEEK_SET> - I<$offset> is the new position in the file.

=item *

C<SEEK_CUR> - I<$offset> is the offset from the current position in
the file.

=item *

C<SEEK_END> - I<$offset> is the offset relative to the end of the
file.

=back

Note that seeking past the end of the file may or may not result in an
error.

Returns the new position in the file, or -1 on error.

=item close

  my $result = $io->close;

Call when you're with the file.  If the IO object is connected to a
file this won't close the file handle, but buffers may be flushed (if
any).

Returns 0 on success, -1 on failure.

=back

=head1 AUTHOR

Tony Cook <tony@imager.perl.org>

=head1 SEE ALSO

Imager, Imager::Files

=cut