Improves readability by using "subroutine" scope? Far, far, FAR from it. Tightest scope possible improves readability because I don't have to go back to find out what else has played with this variable. It also means that when I figure out I don't need a variable any longer, I'm more likely to remove it - I've seen functions start with "my (<20 variables here>)" - and I notice one that looks out of place, and then can't find it being used anymore. I don't see nearly as many unused variables being declared when following tightest-scope-possible rules.

There is a reason why C++ started to allow declarations of local variables anywhere in a block, and not just at the top as its predecessor, C, did. Because it's more readable. And maintainable. (Well, that, and delayed construction of variables on the stack only made sense - forcing them all to the top of the block would be impossible.) And now, C allows it, too.

Mandatory declare-at-the-top semantics is going the way of the dodo. And for good reason. It was only ever there due to limitations of the compilers (allowing declarations anywhere is hard - especially in compiled languages with a stack). Now that even the compilers are being written in higher-level languages, with better automatic memory management, there's much less excuse in granting this type of flexibility for readability.

As for your question - yes, I know that works. And just to convince myself that I was right, I wrote a quick program to prove it ;-) Perl is more generous with where you can put "my" than you may think. You probably didn't know you could use it for the lexical filehandle in the first place: 

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

open my $fh, '<', $0;
chomp(my @lines = <$fh>);

print "[$_]\n" for @lines;

[download]
No lines starting with "my" - but, I do end up with both a lexical scalar (filehandle) and a lexical array.

In reply to Re: subroutine scope vs. tightest scope by Tanktalus
in thread Naming convention for variables, subroutines, modules, etc.. and variable declaration by Anonymous Monk

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.