PERLFILTER(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLFILTER(1)NAMEperlfilter - Source Filters
DESCRIPTION
This article is about a little-known feature of Perl
called source filters. Source filters alter the program
text of a module before Perl sees it, much as a C prepro
cessor alters the source text of a C program before the
compiler sees it. This article tells you more about what
source filters are, how they work, and how to write your
own.
The original purpose of source filters was to let you
encrypt your program source to prevent casual piracy. This
isn't all they can do, as you'll soon learn. But first,
the basics.
CONCEPTS
Before the Perl interpreter can execute a Perl script, it
must first read it from a file into memory for parsing and
compilation. If that script itself includes other scripts
with a "use" or "require" statement, then each of those
scripts will have to be read from their respective files
as well.
Now think of each logical connection between the Perl
parser and an individual file as a source stream. A source
stream is created when the Perl parser opens a file, it
continues to exist as the source code is read into memory,
and it is destroyed when Perl is finished parsing the
file. If the parser encounters a "require" or "use" state
ment in a source stream, a new and distinct stream is cre
ated just for that file.
The diagram below represents a single source stream, with
the flow of source from a Perl script file on the left
into the Perl parser on the right. This is how Perl nor
mally operates.
file -------> parser
There are two important points to remember:
1. Although there can be any number of source streams in
existence at any given time, only one will be active.
2. Every source stream is associated with only one file.
A source filter is a special kind of Perl module that
intercepts and modifies a source stream before it reaches
the parser. A source filter changes our diagram like this:
file ----> filter ----> parser
If that doesn't make much sense, consider the analogy of a
command pipeline. Say you have a shell script stored in
the compressed file trial.gz. The simple pipeline command
below runs the script without needing to create a tempo
rary file to hold the uncompressed file.
gunzip -c trial.gz | sh
In this case, the data flow from the pipeline can be rep
resented as follows:
trial.gz ----> gunzip ----> sh
With source filters, you can store the text of your script
compressed and use a source filter to uncompress it for
Perl's parser:
compressed gunzip
Perl program ---> source filter ---> parser
USING FILTERS
So how do you use a source filter in a Perl script? Above,
I said that a source filter is just a special kind of mod
ule. Like all Perl modules, a source filter is invoked
with a use statement.
Say you want to pass your Perl source through the C pre
processor before execution. You could use the existing
"-P" command line option to do this, but as it happens,
the source filters distribution comes with a C preproces
sor filter module called Filter::cpp. Let's use that
instead.
Below is an example program, "cpp_test", which makes use
of this filter. Line numbers have been added to allow
specific lines to be referenced easily.
1: use Filter::cpp ;
2: #define TRUE 1
3: $a = TRUE ;
4: print "a = $a\n" ;
When you execute this script, Perl creates a source stream
for the file. Before the parser processes any of the lines
from the file, the source stream looks like this:
cpp_test ---------> parser
Line 1, "use Filter::cpp", includes and installs the "cpp"
filter module. All source filters work this way. The use
statement is compiled and executed at compile time, before
any more of the file is read, and it attaches the cpp fil
ter to the source stream behind the scenes. Now the data
flow looks like this:
cpp_test ----> cpp filter ----> parser
As the parser reads the second and subsequent lines from
the source stream, it feeds those lines through the "cpp"
source filter before processing them. The "cpp" filter
simply passes each line through the real C preprocessor.
The output from the C preprocessor is then inserted back
into the source stream by the filter.
.-> cpp --.
| |
| |
| <-'
cpp_test ----> cpp filter ----> parser
The parser then sees the following code:
use Filter::cpp ;
$a = 1 ;
print "a = $a\n" ;
Let's consider what happens when the filtered code
includes another module with use:
1: use Filter::cpp ;
2: #define TRUE 1
3: use Fred ;
4: $a = TRUE ;
5: print "a = $a\n" ;
The "cpp" filter does not apply to the text of the Fred
module, only to the text of the file that used it
("cpp_test"). Although the use statement on line 3 will
pass through the cpp filter, the module that gets included
("Fred") will not. The source streams look like this after
line 3 has been parsed and before line 4 is parsed:
cpp_test ---> cpp filter ---> parser (INACTIVE)
Fred.pm ----> parser
As you can see, a new stream has been created for reading
the source from "Fred.pm". This stream will remain active
until all of "Fred.pm" has been parsed. The source stream
for "cpp_test" will still exist, but is inactive. Once the
parser has finished reading Fred.pm, the source stream
associated with it will be destroyed. The source stream
for "cpp_test" then becomes active again and the parser
reads line 4 and subsequent lines from "cpp_test".
You can use more than one source filter on a single file.
Similarly, you can reuse the same filter in as many files
as you like.
For example, if you have a uuencoded and compressed source
file, it is possible to stack a uudecode filter and an
uncompression filter like this:
use Filter::uudecode ; use Filter::uncompress ;
M'XL(".H<US4''V9I;F%L')Q;>7/;1I;_>_I3=&E=%:F*I"T?22Q/
M6]9*<IQCO*XFT"0[PL%%'Y+IG?WN^ZYN-$'J.[.JE$,20/?K=_[>
...
Once the first line has been processed, the flow will look
like this:
file ---> uudecode ---> uncompress ---> parser
filter filter
Data flows through filters in the same order they appear
in the source file. The uudecode filter appeared before
the uncompress filter, so the source file will be uude
coded before it's uncompressed.
WRITING A SOURCE FILTER
There are three ways to write your own source filter. You
can write it in C, use an external program as a filter, or
write the filter in Perl. I won't cover the first two in
any great detail, so I'll get them out of the way first.
Writing the filter in Perl is most convenient, so I'll
devote the most space to it.
WRITING A SOURCE FILTER IN C
The first of the three available techniques is to write
the filter completely in C. The external module you create
interfaces directly with the source filter hooks provided
by Perl.
The advantage of this technique is that you have complete
control over the implementation of your filter. The big
disadvantage is the increased complexity required to write
the filter - not only do you need to understand the source
filter hooks, but you also need a reasonable knowledge of
Perl guts. One of the few times it is worth going to this
trouble is when writing a source scrambler. The "decrypt"
filter (which unscrambles the source before Perl parses
it) included with the source filter distribution is an
example of a C source filter (see Decryption Filters,
below).
Decryption Filters
All decryption filters work on the principle of
"security through obscurity." Regardless of how well
you write a decryption filter and how strong your
encryption algorithm, anyone determined enough can
retrieve the original source code. The reason is
quite simple - once the decryption filter has
decrypted the source back to its original form, frag
ments of it will be stored in the computer's memory
as Perl parses it. The source might only be in memory
for a short period of time, but anyone possessing a
debugger, skill, and lots of patience can eventually
reconstruct your program.
That said, there are a number of steps that can be
taken to make life difficult for the potential
cracker. The most important: Write your decryption
filter in C and statically link the decryption module
into the Perl binary. For further tips to make life
difficult for the potential cracker, see the file
decrypt.pm in the source filters module.
CREATING A SOURCE FILTER AS A SEPARATE EXECUTABLE
An alternative to writing the filter in C is to create a
separate executable in the language of your choice. The
separate executable reads from standard input, does what
ever processing is necessary, and writes the filtered data
to standard output. "Filter:cpp" is an example of a source
filter implemented as a separate executable - the exe
cutable is the C preprocessor bundled with your C com
piler.
The source filter distribution includes two modules that
simplify this task: "Filter::exec" and "Filter::sh". Both
allow you to run any external executable. Both use a
coprocess to control the flow of data into and out of the
external executable. (For details on coprocesses, see
Stephens, W.R. "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environ
ment." Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-210-56317-7, pages
441-445.) The difference between them is that "Fil
ter::exec" spawns the external command directly, while
"Filter::sh" spawns a shell to execute the external com
mand. (Unix uses the Bourne shell; NT uses the cmd shell.)
Spawning a shell allows you to make use of the shell
metacharacters and redirection facilities.
Here is an example script that uses "Filter::sh":
use Filter::sh 'tr XYZ PQR' ;
$a = 1 ;
print "XYZ a = $a\n" ;
The output you'll get when the script is executed:
PQR a = 1
Writing a source filter as a separate executable works
fine, but a small performance penalty is incurred. For
example, if you execute the small example above, a sepa
rate subprocess will be created to run the Unix "tr" com
mand. Each use of the filter requires its own subprocess.
If creating subprocesses is expensive on your system, you
might want to consider one of the other options for creat
ing source filters.
WRITING A SOURCE FILTER IN PERL
The easiest and most portable option available for creat
ing your own source filter is to write it completely in
Perl. To distinguish this from the previous two tech
niques, I'll call it a Perl source filter.
To help understand how to write a Perl source filter we
need an example to study. Here is a complete source filter
that performs rot13 decoding. (Rot13 is a very simple
encryption scheme used in Usenet postings to hide the con
tents of offensive posts. It moves every letter forward
thirteen places, so that A becomes N, B becomes O, and Z
becomes M.)
package Rot13 ;
use Filter::Util::Call ;
sub import {
my ($type) = @_ ;
my ($ref) = [] ;
filter_add(bless $ref) ;
}
sub filter {
my ($self) = @_ ;
my ($status) ;
tr/n-za-mN-ZA-M/a-zA-Z/
if ($status = filter_read()) > 0 ;
$status ;
}
1;
All Perl source filters are implemented as Perl classes
and have the same basic structure as the example above.
First, we include the "Filter::Util::Call" module, which
exports a number of functions into your filter's names
pace. The filter shown above uses two of these functions,
"filter_add()" and "filter_read()".
Next, we create the filter object and associate it with
the source stream by defining the "import" function. If
you know Perl well enough, you know that "import" is
called automatically every time a module is included with
a use statement. This makes "import" the ideal place to
both create and install a filter object.
In the example filter, the object ("$ref") is blessed just
like any other Perl object. Our example uses an anonymous
array, but this isn't a requirement. Because this example
doesn't need to store any context information, we could
have used a scalar or hash reference just as well. The
next section demonstrates context data.
The association between the filter object and the source
stream is made with the "filter_add()" function. This
takes a filter object as a parameter ("$ref" in this case)
and installs it in the source stream.
Finally, there is the code that actually does the filter
ing. For this type of Perl source filter, all the filter
ing is done in a method called "filter()". (It is also
possible to write a Perl source filter using a closure.
See the "Filter::Util::Call" manual page for more
details.) It's called every time the Perl parser needs
another line of source to process. The "filter()" method,
in turn, reads lines from the source stream using the
"filter_read()" function.
If a line was available from the source stream, "fil
ter_read()" returns a status value greater than zero and
appends the line to "$_". A status value of zero indi
cates end-of-file, less than zero means an error. The fil
ter function itself is expected to return its status in
the same way, and put the filtered line it wants written
to the source stream in "$_". The use of "$_" accounts for
the brevity of most Perl source filters.
In order to make use of the rot13 filter we need some way
of encoding the source file in rot13 format. The script
below, "mkrot13", does just that.
die "usage mkrot13 filename\n" unless @ARGV ;
my $in = $ARGV[0] ;
my $out = "$in.tmp" ;
open(IN, "<$in") or die "Cannot open file $in: $!\n";
open(OUT, ">$out") or die "Cannot open file $out: $!\n";
print OUT "use Rot13;\n" ;
while (<IN>) {
tr/a-zA-Z/n-za-mN-ZA-M/ ;
print OUT ;
}
close IN;
close OUT;
unlink $in;
rename $out, $in;
If we encrypt this with "mkrot13":
print " hello fred \n" ;
the result will be this:
use Rot13;
cevag "uryyb serq\a" ;
Running it produces this output:
hello fred
USING CONTEXT: THE DEBUG FILTER
The rot13 example was a trivial example. Here's another
demonstration that shows off a few more features.
Say you wanted to include a lot of debugging code in your
Perl script during development, but you didn't want it
available in the released product. Source filters offer a
solution. In order to keep the example simple, let's say
you wanted the debugging output to be controlled by an
environment variable, "DEBUG". Debugging code is enabled
if the variable exists, otherwise it is disabled.
Two special marker lines will bracket debugging code, like
this:
## DEBUG_BEGIN
if ($year > 1999) {
warn "Debug: millennium bug in year $year\n" ;
}
## DEBUG_END
When the "DEBUG" environment variable exists, the filter
ensures that Perl parses only the code between the
"DEBUG_BEGIN" and "DEBUG_END" markers. That means that
when "DEBUG" does exist, the code above should be passed
through the filter unchanged. The marker lines can also be
passed through as-is, because the Perl parser will see
them as comment lines. When "DEBUG" isn't set, we need a
way to disable the debug code. A simple way to achieve
that is to convert the lines between the two markers into
comments:
## DEBUG_BEGIN
#if ($year > 1999) {
# warn "Debug: millennium bug in year $year\n" ;
#}
## DEBUG_END
Here is the complete Debug filter:
package Debug;
use strict;
use warnings;
use Filter::Util::Call ;
use constant TRUE => 1 ;
use constant FALSE => 0 ;
sub import {
my ($type) = @_ ;
my (%context) = (
Enabled => defined $ENV{DEBUG},
InTraceBlock => FALSE,
Filename => (caller)[1],
LineNo => 0,
LastBegin => 0,
) ;
filter_add(bless \%context) ;
}
sub Die {
my ($self) = shift ;
my ($message) = shift ;
my ($line_no) = shift || $self->{LastBegin} ;
die "$message at $self->{Filename} line $line_no.\n"
}
sub filter {
my ($self) = @_ ;
my ($status) ;
$status = filter_read() ;
++ $self->{LineNo} ;
# deal with EOF/error first
if ($status <= 0) {
$self->Die("DEBUG_BEGIN has no DEBUG_END")
if $self->{InTraceBlock} ;
return $status ;
}
if ($self->{InTraceBlock}) {
if (/^\s*##\s*DEBUG_BEGIN/ ) {
$self->Die("Nested DEBUG_BEGIN", $self->{LineNo})
} elsif (/^\s*##\s*DEBUG_END/) {
$self->{InTraceBlock} = FALSE ;
}
# comment out the debug lines when the filter is disabled
s/^/#/ if ! $self->{Enabled} ;
} elsif ( /^\s*##\s*DEBUG_BEGIN/ ) {
$self->{InTraceBlock} = TRUE ;
$self->{LastBegin} = $self->{LineNo} ;
} elsif ( /^\s*##\s*DEBUG_END/ ) {
$self->Die("DEBUG_END has no DEBUG_BEGIN", $self->{LineNo});
}
return $status ;
}
1 ;
The big difference between this filter and the previous
example is the use of context data in the filter object.
The filter object is based on a hash reference, and is
used to keep various pieces of context information between
calls to the filter function. All but two of the hash
fields are used for error reporting. The first of those
two, Enabled, is used by the filter to determine whether
the debugging code should be given to the Perl parser. The
second, InTraceBlock, is true when the filter has encoun
tered a "DEBUG_BEGIN" line, but has not yet encountered
the following "DEBUG_END" line.
If you ignore all the error checking that most of the code
does, the essence of the filter is as follows:
sub filter {
my ($self) = @_ ;
my ($status) ;
$status = filter_read() ;
# deal with EOF/error first
return $status if $status <= 0 ;
if ($self->{InTraceBlock}) {
if (/^\s*##\s*DEBUG_END/) {
$self->{InTraceBlock} = FALSE
}
# comment out debug lines when the filter is disabled
s/^/#/ if ! $self->{Enabled} ;
} elsif ( /^\s*##\s*DEBUG_BEGIN/ ) {
$self->{InTraceBlock} = TRUE ;
}
return $status ;
}
Be warned: just as the C-preprocessor doesn't know C, the
Debug filter doesn't know Perl. It can be fooled quite
easily:
print <<EOM;
##DEBUG_BEGIN
EOM
Such things aside, you can see that a lot can be achieved
with a modest amount of code.
CONCLUSION
You now have better understanding of what a source filter
is, and you might even have a possible use for them. If
you feel like playing with source filters but need a bit
of inspiration, here are some extra features you could add
to the Debug filter.
First, an easy one. Rather than having debugging code that
is all-or-nothing, it would be much more useful to be able
to control which specific blocks of debugging code get
included. Try extending the syntax for debug blocks to
allow each to be identified. The contents of the "DEBUG"
environment variable can then be used to control which
blocks get included.
Once you can identify individual blocks, try allowing them
to be nested. That isn't difficult either.
Here is a interesting idea that doesn't involve the Debug
filter. Currently Perl subroutines have fairly limited
support for formal parameter lists. You can specify the
number of parameters and their type, but you still have to
manually take them out of the "@_" array yourself. Write a
source filter that allows you to have a named parameter
list. Such a filter would turn this:
sub MySub ($first, $second, @rest) { ... }
into this:
sub MySub($$@) {
my ($first) = shift ;
my ($second) = shift ;
my (@rest) = @_ ;
...
}
Finally, if you feel like a real challenge, have a go at
writing a full-blown Perl macro preprocessor as a source
filter. Borrow the useful features from the C preprocessor
and any other macro processors you know. The tricky bit
will be choosing how much knowledge of Perl's syntax you
want your filter to have.
REQUIREMENTS
The Source Filters distribution is available on CPAN, in
CPAN/modules/by-module/Filter
AUTHOR
Paul Marquess <Paul.Marquess@btinternet.com>
Copyrights
This article originally appeared in The Perl Journal #11,
and is copyright 1998 The Perl Journal. It appears cour
tesy of Jon Orwant and The Perl Journal. This document
may be distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.
2001-04-07 perl v5.6.1 PERLFILTER(1)
