"clobber" is commonly used to mean "overwrite". This has been true for over a decade (csh has had a "noclobber" option for more than 10 years).

Now "clobber a predefined variable" can be made more precise as "clobber a predefined variable's value". In the original(?) use of the term, it was a file that was being overwritten, which makes the distinction even less problematic since the clobbering of the file's contents was often accomplished by overwriting the file with a different file (now with the same name that the original file used to have) rather than by keeping the same file and just overwriting the contents of that file (but both were possible and the distinction was rarely important since the point was that your file's original data was no longer available via the original file name).

So I find it natural to interpret "clobber a predefined variable" as "clobber a predefined variable's value" in the absence of any evidence that we are actually talking about the less-common act of removing variables from symbol tables or replacing them.

"Clutter" certainly doesn't fit this case, as Jenda explains.

                - tye

In reply to Re: Clobbering or cluttering? ("overwrite") by tye
in thread Is your module clobbering predefined variables? by crenz

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.