You can get around that by simply declaring $func as an undefined lexical and then re-defining it as a subroutine. Since the recursive call doesn't get executed until the sub is called for the first time, by that time, $func will contain the code reference. For example,

my $fac;

$fac = sub { 
    my ( $n ) = @_;
    return 1 if $n == 1;
    return $n * $fac->( $n - 1 );
};

print $fac->( 5 );

[download]

Yes, I know factorials are a bad example for recursion; it's just the first thing that came to mind. :)

In reply to Re: private recursive subroutines by friedo
in thread private recursive subroutines by Sixtease

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