# info > IO::Lines

IO::[Lines(3pm)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/Lines/3pm/markdown)        User Contributed Perl Documentation       IO::[Lines(3pm)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/Lines/3pm/markdown)

## NAME
       [IO::Lines](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/IO%3A%3ALines/markdown) - IO:: interface for reading/writing an array of lines

## SYNOPSIS
           use [IO::Lines](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/IO%3A%3ALines/markdown);

           ### See [IO::ScalarArray](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/IO%3A%3AScalarArray/markdown) for details

## DESCRIPTION
       This class implements objects which behave just like FileHandle (or
       [IO::Handle](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/IO%3A%3AHandle/markdown)) objects, except that you may use them to write to (or read
       from) an array of lines.  They can be tiehandle'd as well.

       This is a subclass of [IO::ScalarArray](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/IO%3A%3AScalarArray/markdown) in which the underlying array has
       its data stored in a line-oriented-format: that is, every element ends
       in a "\n", with the possible exception of the final element.  This
       makes "getline()" much more efficient; if you plan to do line-oriented
       reading/printing, you want this class.

       The "print()" method will enforce this rule, so you can print arbitrary
       data to the line-array: it will break the data at newlines
       appropriately.

       See [IO::ScalarArray](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/IO%3A%3AScalarArray/markdown) for full usage and warnings.

## VERSION
       $Id: Lines.pm,v 1.3 2005/02/10 21:21:53 dfs Exp $

## AUTHORS
   Primary Maintainer
       Dianne Skoll (<dfs@roaringpenguin.com>).

   Principal author
       Eryq (<eryq@zeegee.com>).  President, ZeeGee Software Inc
       (<http://www.zeegee.com>).

   Other contributors
       Thanks to the following individuals for their invaluable contributions
       (if I've forgotten or misspelled your name, please email me!):

       Morris M. Siegel, for his $/ patch and the new "getlines()".

       Doug Wilson, for the [IO::Handle](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/IO%3A%3AHandle/markdown) inheritance and automatic tie-ing.

perl v5.28.1                      2019-02-28                    IO::[Lines(3pm)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/Lines/3pm/markdown)