http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=206726


in reply to Cheap idioms

i've been localizing handles with anonymous subroutines for a while now.

i think i'd write your snippet as an anonymous sub, giving it a little more muscle compared to a do block. something like:

#!/usr/bin/perl require 5.006_001; use strict; use warnings; $|++; my %cool_funcs = ( ## slurp a file to a scalar ## pass filename (as scalar) ## returns contents of file (scalar context) slurp_to_scalar => sub{ local( *ARGV, $/ ); @ARGV = @_; <> }, ## slurp one or more files to an array ## pass filename(s) (as scalar) ## returns contents of file(s) (list context) ## returns number of lines (scalar context) slurp_to_array => sub{ local *ARGV; @ARGV = @_; <> }, ); ## to use it: ## create a list of test files my @files = @ARGV; ## get the contents to an array, and the number of lines to a scalar my $no_of_lines = ( my @contents ) = $cool_funcs{slurp_to_array}->( @files ); ## these values match... print $no_of_lines, $/, scalar @contents, $/; ## here's the good stuff... print @contents; ## get file to scalar -- note extra args are ignored my $data = $cool_funcs{slurp_to_scalar}->( @files ); ## here's the file's contents... print $data;

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