What he has now is not a closure. It would be a closure if he used his idea of declaring the variable above and referencing it inside the sub.

UPDATE:
Actually, as long as he still passes by reference it's not a closure. Here's an example of what would make it a closure: 

  my $ref_to_big_chunk;
  get_big_chunk(8675309);
  print "And the big data is: ";
  print $$ref_to_big_chunk;

  sub get_big_chunk
  {
    my $jenny_tel = $_[0];
    my $big_jenny = [ all work done here to make this huge ]
    $ref_to_big_chunk = \$big_jenny;
  }

[download]
Note that this is a terrible way to do it because it's no longer obvious that the get_big_chunk() sub alters $ref_to_big_chunk.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: The danger is passing back references to local subroutines. by perrin
in thread The danger is passing back references to local subroutines. by ChunkyMonk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.