Nope, no typeglobs in Perl 6, not even for filehandles. Like pad variables in Perl 5, the sigil is part of the name in Perl 6.

If you've (the generic you here, as I have no doubt tye knows how to make globs dance) never used them, this probably isn't a good time to start, as there's very rarely any good reason to do so in perl 5. If you knew when and where it was a good idea, you'd already be more than capable of doing it without asking how globs work. :)

a fair point. Perl6 losing globs makes sense, but will there still be the equivalent of the symbol table - that can be read and manipulated at runtime?


time was, I could move my arms like a bird and...

Yes, of course. Both the global symbol tables and the lexical pads up the call chain will be readable.

Try this out. You'll note that the lexical's name is directly stored as '%method'. This isn't documented since you have to reach into the guts to get a lexical's name back out again so unless you're doing something really, highly unusual it doesn't show up.

=pod

Sample output ...
Names
no name
'%methods'
no name
Values
B::AV=SCALAR(0x8cb00)
B::HV=SCALAR(0x8cb18)
B::NULL=SCALAR(0x8cb30)

=cut

use strict;
use warnings;
no warnings 'uninitialized';
use constant DEBUG => 1;
use B;

{
    # Get my new really private object where even
    # the methods are hidden
    my $object = new object;

    # and now violate it. Privacy? Ha!
    my $c_hash = extractLexHash( $object );
    while (my ($key, $val) = each %$c_hash ) {
        print "$key\t@$val\n";
    }
}

sub extractLexHash {
    my $Obj = B::svref_2object($_[0]);
    my ($LexicalNames,
        $LexicalValues) =
            map { [ $_->ARRAY ] } $Obj->PADLIST->ARRAY;
    # for a cheap thrill print the contents of
    # $LexicalNames

    if (DEBUG) {
        print "Names\n";
        print "@{[$_->can('PV') ? \"'\".$_->PV().\"'\" : 'no name']}\n
+" for @$LexicalNames;
        print "Values\n";
        print "$_\n" for @$LexicalValues;
        exit;
    }

    my %Lexicals = ();
    for my $index
        (0 ..
         # min(@LexicalNames, @LexicalValues)
         (@$LexicalNames < @$LexicalValues ? @$LexicalNames : @$Lexica
+lValues)) {
        next unless B::class($LexicalNames->[$index]) eq 'PVNV';
        my @values = $LexicalValues -> [$index] -> ARRAY;

        while (@values) {
            my $LexicalName = shift @values;
            my $LexicalObj = shift @values;
            $Lexicals{$LexicalName} = [ $LexicalName,
                                        bless(B::svref_2object(\$Lexic
+alName),'B::IV')->IVX,
                                        $LexicalObj->RV ];
        }
    }
    return \%Lexicals;
}

package object;
sub new {
    my %methods;
    %methods =
        ( me => sub { print "me!\n" },
          you => sub { print "you!\n" } );

    bless sub { $methods{me}->() }, 'object';
}
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woah!
that'll shut me up for a while ;)


time was, I could move my arms like a bird and...