Most of the time I wouldn't be tempted to write functions that operate on $_ if given no arguments. trim($_) is just not a big hardship compared to trim() (although I do use implicit $_ in some cases, I usually don't with chomp(), for example).

If I had a function that used $_ when given no arguments, then I'd likely not support taking a list of arguments (because of the ambiguity you noticed). Though, if you aren't likely to run into a relatively old version of Perl, then there is a somewhat ugly way around the ambiguity problem that I'm reluctant to mention because somebody would probably use it:

<Reveal this spoiler or all in this thread>

- tye        

In reply to Re: Is silent use of $_ for empty argument lists reasonable for "shortcut" functions? (E2CUTE) by tye
in thread Is silent use of $_ for empty argument lists reasonable for "shortcut" functions? by Wyrdweaver

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