Sys::OutPut, release 2.1, is a Perl 5 module which defines the
subroutines "out", "put", "err", "talk", and "debug", all of which
perform printf-formatting of their arguments to either STDOUT or
STDERR, as appropriate, with or without trailing newlines, and possibly
depending upon the $quiet or $debug variables.

Basically, I don't like to write "printf STDERR" or "printf STDOUT", so
these little routines do it for me.  And, they take care of ensuring
that newlines are output when appropriate.

You would be surprised how much easier writing Perl scripts is when you
use these routines.  The "debug" routine is particularly useful when
you can code like this:

    next if debug "I got this far."

The module has embedded POD text with which man or HTML pages can be
created.

For detailed usage information, you can do:

    pod2man OutPut.pm | nroff -man 

The module is accompanied with a Makefile.PL, this README, a test
program (test.pl), a reference test output file, and the GNU License,
under which this software is freely available.

Follow these steps to install:

    gunzip Sys-OutPut-2.1.tar.gz
    tar xvf Sys-OutPut-2.1.tar
    cd Sys-OutPut-2.1
    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test && make install

The "make install" will only succeed if you have the correct
permissions.

The archives are available at your nearest CPAN site, which you can
find from http://www.perl.org/CPAN/.

Contributions or improvements are welcome.
___________________________________________________________
Alan Stebbens <aks@sgi.com>      http://reality.sgi.com/aks
