Re: Difference between 'use' and 'require'

The differences are many and often subtle:

use only expects a bareword, require can take a bareword or an expression
use is evaluated at compile-time, require at run-time
use implicitly calls the import method of the module being loaded, require does not
use excepts arguments in addition to the bareword (to be passed to import), require does not
use does not behave like a function (i.e can't be called with parens, can't be used in an expression, etc), whereas require does

So they behave differently but achieve the same goal. Then there's a list of cultural differences in addition to the technical differences, but they're not so hard and fast.

HTH

_________ broquaint

Comment on Re: Difference between 'use' and 'require'

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Difference between 'use' and 'require' by ikegami (Patriarch) on Dec 07, 2004 at 15:01 UTC
use implicitly calls the import method of the module being loaded, require does not That's optional. Adding empty parens (as in `use Socket ();`) prevents `import` from being called.	[reply] [d/l] [select]