Why? Your assignment is to refactor the given code. That's a local operation, and doesn't have to depend on more context (then the assignment would be to refactor the code given, in addition to the context).
Well...for starters, I didn't see if/where $depth was used outside of the subroutine. If it isn't used, I'd refactor the code so that $depth was scoped to the sub. Given the code, who knows? It's somewhat difficult to refactor code that you don't know the usage of. Truth be told, I did have a refactoring of it that I was ready to post, but then saw that I didn't have enough context upon which to base my refactorings. However, I felt that I might make better choices with more context.

thor

Feel the white light, the light within
Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will
For all of us waiting, your kingdom will come


In reply to Re^3: Refactoring challenge. by thor
in thread Refactoring challenge. by BrowserUk

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.