in reply to Perl Bug? import function

The reason why the import is not called is that when you load the file subdir/Somemodule.pm, the module is still called Somemodule (unless that file it loads calls it something else, of course). Thus, when use tries to run somedir::Somemodule->import(...), nothing happens because there is no import method loaded for the package somedir::Somemodule, only Somemodule.

Modifying @INC directly is better then using this use hack to make the subdirectory part of the module name you load for this reason.

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Re: Re: Perl Bug? import function
by jroberts (Acolyte) on Sep 13, 2001 at 04:05 UTC
    Thanks, I never would have thought of that. I guess the "use hack" to which you refer is the "::" notation. This seems widely used, but maybe it shouldn't be. Is this one of those "features" that works by some strange quirk in perl itself or was this a design feature? Just curious about the history. Thanks again, jr
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      Using the :: notation is not a "use hack" by itself. This is used, quite properly, to have modules be in catergories, e.g. XML::Parser, IO::Socket, etc.

      What I was referring to was taking advantage of this notation to load a module based on its location, instead of based on its name. The way to do this task in a way which does not have cavaets is to modify @INC (e.g. using lib) so you can load the module in question using its real name. Even if this approach did work, I find it to be bad style -- a use line should tell you what module you are using, it should not be something that needs to be modified when you just move files around.

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        I've never looked at the code for XML::Parser for example, is the actual module (package) as follows..? 
        package XML::Parser;

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        I looked, it is! Thanks for the heads up. I never considered the separtion of file name space and module hierarchy as separate because i didn't know that the above was a valid package name. Thanks again jr
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