Re^6: PSGI, Plack, Twiggy, AnyEvent and SockJS... I need help

So this is the final version of the timer code that works:

...
            my $w_cond = AnyEvent->condvar;
            $w_cond->cb( sub { warn $_[0]->recv } );
            my $w; $w = AnyEvent->timer(
                after => 0,
                interval => 5,
                cb => sub {
                    undef $w if (0);
                    $session->write('5 seconds have passed');
                    $w_cond->send();
                }
            );
...
[download]

I changed undef $w; to undef $w if (0);. Now the big question is why does this work, but simply commenting out undef $w; causes the timer to not work? Is there a logical reason here, or is it voodoo? By "voodoo" I mean, code that has to be typed a certain way "just because".

Comment on Re^6: PSGI, Plack, Twiggy, AnyEvent and SockJS... I need help Download Code

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Re^7: PSGI, Plack, Twiggy, AnyEvent and SockJS... I need help by Corion (Patriarch) on Apr 09, 2014 at 17:27 UTC
Now is the moment you want to read about "closures" in Perl. That is why I told you about "mentioning" `$w` in the subroutine or making `$w` a global variable.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^8: PSGI, Plack, Twiggy, AnyEvent and SockJS... I need help by xtpu2 (Acolyte) on Apr 09, 2014 at 18:56 UTC
Interesting! I didn't quite understand what you meant about "mentioning" the variable first time around. Just now, I replaced `undef $w if (0);` with `$w;` and other than a warning about `Useless use of private variable in void context`, it worked fine. Is there a best practice for how to "mention" variables in this kind of context? For now, off to read about closures. Edited to add after reading about closures: So basically, the reason I want to mention the variable $w within the callback subroutine is so that the variable becomes part of the lexical scope of the closure? I'm not sure if that's the correct terminology... But basically, unless the variable is somehow being used within the subroutine, it will be destroyed once all the callbacks and event handlers have been set up?	[reply]
Re^9: PSGI, Plack, Twiggy, AnyEvent and SockJS... I need help by Corion (Patriarch) on Apr 09, 2014 at 20:04 UTC
Exactly - once the value goes out of scope, it gets released. You want to prevent this and release all references to the value when you want to stop the timer (if ever).	[reply]