using other files with program

Zerhash has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

my program is not executing properly... im using the require statement to call another file.

require otherfile;
hello();
[download]

and in the otherfile

sub hello{
print "Hello";
}
[download]

when it executes everything comes up blank...doesnt execute would i need to package the otherfile? how would i do that? thx Zer

Edit davorg: added code tags

Comment on using other files with program Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: using other files with program by davorg (Chancellor) on Oct 30, 2001 at 19:44 UTC
Two problems: When you give `require` a bareword, it assumes it's the name of a module and appends '.pm'. As your's is the full name of the file you need to quote it. A `require`d file needs to return a true value. This is normally achieved by putting `1;` as the last line of the file. Both of these errors give obvious error messages. Didn't you see them? It's well worth the time learning how to bundle this stuff u pinto a real module. -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you don't talk about Perl club."	[reply]
Re: using other files with program by doc (Scribe) on Oct 30, 2001 at 20:16 UTC
This works fine: `# 'main script' require 'foo.pl'; foo(); # this is the content of foo.pl sub foo{ print"foo" } 1;` [download] Perl will look for 'foo.pl' in @INC which will usually contain these three directories: /Perl/lib /Perl/site/lib . The . dir is the current dir. For more details on @INC see Simple Module Tutorial by tachyon Error messages are always useful when thing don't work. see also New Monks and the link on asking questions doc print(s<>ecode?scalar reverse :p)	[reply] [d/l]
Re: using other files with program by traveler (Parson) on Oct 30, 2001 at 20:08 UTC
If you don't put a newline (\n) after the Hello, some shells (e.g. most of the UNIX/Linux ones) will overwrite the Hello with the prompt hiding the result. Try using "Hello\n" and seeing if that helps. HTH, --traveler	[reply]