I've searched the perl-porters mailing list archive. Other than obfuscated .sigs, etc., I've only found one thought-provoking mention (in a comment in a patch) of %_. The author says (something like) "Someday, we may have to change the %_ hack."

Anyone know if %_ has a specific purpose, or is it an artifact of the typeglob creation, per takshaka?

Follow-up question...
Since _ variables ($_, @_) hold arguments, would %_ make intuitive sense to you as "the variable holding named arguments"? It really was a random thought, but since I thoroughly enjoy learning idiomatic Perl, this idea struck me with some force.

Other than declaring it local (which suggests some deeper meaning in and of itself), how would you feel about code (a subroutine) which stores its named arguments in %_? Does this help or hinder self-documentation?

Russ

P.S. Why can't I "maintain" my original post? I would prefer to simply edit it, rather than make a new post for updates...