I am in the middle of a large project and find myself in a position where it is necessary to use pass-by-reference. My problem is more one of style and good coding practices than it is a "How do I do this" question.

My first thought is do something like this: 

package snafu;

sub foo {
  my $bar = shift;
  # Interesting things happen
  $$bar = $baz;

  if ( $things_worked ) {
    return SUCCESS_CODE;
  else {
    return FAILURE_CODE;
  }
}

[download]
I do not like the call syntax I am left with: 
unless ( $fsck->foo(\$variable) == SUCCESS_CODE ) {
  die "That was quite grim";
}

[download]
because I find the extra slash somewhat jarring - it breaks the flow of the code.

The other way I know of doing pass-by-reference in perl is like this: 

package snafu;
sub foo {
  # interesting things happen
  $_[0] = $baz;
  if ( $things_worked ) {
    return SUCCESS_CODE;
  else {
    return FAILURE_CODE;
  }
}

[download]
It gives me a nicer calling syntax 
unless ( $fsck->foo($variable) ) {
  die "A terrible way to go";
}

[download]
but I cannot help feeling that the @_ trick is somehow evil and not a very nice thing to do to a variable.

Is there a preferred way of doing this? In the experience of the other Monks, which makes more sense? Is the @_ trick really an evil thing or am I being squeamish? Have I missed something obvious?

TIA,
mikfire

In reply to Pass by reference: is it good form to grope @_? by mikfire

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.