It would except that @dirs is not local to any one instance of the GetDirs function. That is, the push command modifies the same @dirs that is being redefined.

For example, suppose /tmp contains: 

/tmp/chromatic
/tmp/isotope

[download]
On the first recursion, the parent directory is /tmp. The glob picks up chromatic/ and isotope/. @dirs is empty.

It recurses to chromatic/ and picks up a bunch of files there, but none are directories. It returns the empty @dirs. That brings us to the push, and we put chromatic/ into @dirs.

Next, it moves on to isotope/. @dirs contains only chromatic/. As there are only files in isotope/, it doesn't push anything. It returns @dirs (still containing chromatic/) and then reaches the point where it pushes isotope/ onto the array.

As there is nothing left to check from the glob, it returns @dirs, now containing chromatic/ and isotope/. Recursion and global variables are subtle this way.

It's the push statement that makes it right. If you only did an assignment to @dirs, it would be wrong.

In reply to Re: Its not supposed to! by chromatic
in thread Its not supposed to! by BBQ

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