I meant specifically that local %SIG; does not appear to affect the signal handlers, even though it creates a local, empty %SIG, does not appear to be documented.

use warnings;
use strict;

use Data::Dumper;
local $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { warn "outer: $_[0]" };
warn "one\n";
{
    local $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { warn "inner 1: $_[0]" };
    warn "two\n";
    {
        local %SIG;
        warn "three\n";
        print Dumper(\%SIG);
        {
            local $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { warn "inner 2: $_[0]" };
            warn "four\n";
        }
    }
    warn "five\n";
}
warn "six\n";

__END__

outer: one
inner 1: two
inner 1: three
$VAR1 = {};
inner 2: four
five
outer: six
[download]

Okay, so the result for "five" isn't correct... looks like there really may be a bug somewhere.

Okay, so the result for "five" isn't correct... looks like there really may be a bug somewhere.

This is a bug. The result for "five" should be "inner 1: five". The code reference is still in place, but the warn vector seems to be clobbered by the aliasing of %SIG inside the scope of the previous block. Commenting out the local %SIG; line makes the line warn "five\n"; work as expected.

Update: I filed a bug report. Thanks, Anonymous Monk.

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

Thank you! BTW, delete local $SIG{...} appears to be similarly broken.

Fair enough. Obviously, your reference to "It" wasn't specific enough. :-)

[Disclaimer: The following is my best guess. This isn't my area of expertise. I could be entirely wrong.]

In perlsub, under Localization of special variables, it says:

"If you localize a special variable, you'll be giving a new value to it, but its magic won't go away. That means that all side-effects related to this magic still work with the localized value."

Localizing %SIG and the $SIG{__WARN__} magic remains:

$ perl -wE 'warn 1; $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { say "WARN: $_[0]" }; warn 2
+; { local %SIG; warn 3 } warn 4'
1 at -e line 1.
WARN: 2 at -e line 1.

WARN: 3 at -e line 1.

WARN: 4 at -e line 1.
[download]

However, localizing $SIG{__WARN__} and the magic is temporarily removed:

$ perl -wE 'warn 1; $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { say "WARN: $_[0]" }; warn 2
+; { local $SIG{__WARN__}; warn 3 } warn 4'
1 at -e line 1.
WARN: 2 at -e line 1.

3 at -e line 1.
WARN: 4 at -e line 1.
[download]

— Ken

> looks like there really may be a bug somewhere.

IMHO local %SIG shouldn't be allowed and throw an error.

Such special vars are far too magic to allow any useful localization of complete hashes.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

I disagree. The purpose of localizing is to create an empty alias of the localized variable, special or not. It makes no sense to distinguish between scalars, arrays or hashes here. For the requirement of orthogonality, localizing special vars should behave in the same way as localizing of ordinary variables, and they should follow the same semantics.

In my eyes it makes no sense to allow localizing $/ and values of %SIG but forbid localizing %ENV, e.g. to reset the environment inside a scope. Even localizing a symbol table like %Foo:: should imho follow the semantics of local and hashes likewise.

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'