I found the code below today while researching a new patch to PM. I thought it made a good example of a Perl Idiom. I find that I'm so used to "the Perl way" that code like this becomes extremely hard to read. I had to consciously think what this code did. (I've removed the usage doc to make it even harder :-) 

sub getRef
{
    my $this = shift @_;

    for (my $i = 0; $i < @_; $i++)
    {
        unless (ref ($_[$i]))
        {
            $_[$i] = $this->getNodeById($_[$i]) if($_[$i]);
        }
    }

    ref $_[0];
}

[download]

And I think its because I probably would have written it like this: 

sub getRef {
    my $self=shift;
    for (@_) {
       next if ref $_ or !$_;
       $_=$self->getNodeById($_);
    }
    ref shift;
}

[download]

:-)

PS, I know it could be smaller, but this is how I would write for work for instance. Although I probably wouldnt write such code in the first place, but thats another story...


---
demerphq

    First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
    -- Gandhi

• Update:  
Some good catches of typos by gmax,vsarkiss and roju.


In reply to The trouble with Perl Idiom by demerphq

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