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in reply to Re: Re: seeking different ways to slice a 2-d array
in thread seeking different ways to slice a 2-d array

I am very curious to know why you use our so much. I have never had a reason to use it myself because i tend to use OO a lot.

I recently had a big revelation at (jeffa) 3Re: Whether to use local(), hopefully this post will remove the vagueness from your mind as well.

UPDATE:
Oh $#!^ - you are Sam Tregar. Scratch that last sentance! :O

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

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Re: (jeffa) 3Re: seeking different ways to slice a 2-d array
by samtregar (Abbot) on Apr 25, 2002 at 17:35 UTC
    I use it any time I would have used "use vars" in the past - to access package globals. The nice thing is that I can scope where that access is legal. So, if I've got a package global %CACHE and two routines read_cache and write_cache I can:
    sub read_cache { our %CACHE; ... } sub write_cache { our %CACHE; ... }
    And they'll access the same variable. But if I start refering to %CACHE inside some other routine I get an error just like if %CACHE had been a lexical. I like that.

    So, I guess I'm pretty happy with our. The only reason I want more education is that I learned about lexical and package variables as totally separate!!! and now they ain't... Which is cool, but also pretty bizarre.

    -sam

      I don't like to declare the same variable more than once.
      sub read_cache { our %CACHE; ... } sub write_cache { our %CACHF; ... }
      Oops. It's so easy to slip... But on the other hand, you have to misspell the variable throughout all of &write_cache, which usually isn't too probable. But for short routines--like get/set routines--it's a not too far-fetched scenario.

      For those times I prefer to use
      { our %CACHE; sub read_cache { ... } sub write_cache { ... } }
      The only reason I want more education is that I learned about lexical and package variables as totally separate!!! and now they ain't... Which is cool, but also pretty bizarre.

      I agree, it does indeed look like globals has become... something else. But you can relax--they haven't. They're still totally separate. What our() does is to declare a lexical alias for the global variable.

      Cheers,
      -Anomo