Dear monks,

I've a module that stores common variables shared by other modules. Something like this:

package A;

use strict;
use Exporter qw(import);
our @EXPORT = qw($maxlengths);

our $maxlengths = {
    tinytext => 100,
    text => 200,
    mediumtext => 500,
    longtext => 2000
};

# and several others like this

1;

package B;

use strict;
use A qw($maxlengths);

# contrived
sub check_form {
    my $self = shift;
    if (length($self->{address}) > $maxlengths->{tinytext}) {
        # code to trigger error
    }
}

1;

[download]

Assume that, besides Module B, other modules use the global variable $maxlengths exported by Module A.

I've read in a number of places that we rarely have to declare variables with "our" and it's usually a bad idea.

How can I improve my code to achieve a similar behaviour i.e. to be able access a common variable but without resorting to globals?

Looking forward to your advice.

In reply to How not to use "our"? by Anonymous Monk

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