Re^2: The purpose of prototypes in perl subroutines

That's not prototyping: that's just predeclaring that the subroutine mysub exists. You're explicitly not specifying a prototype there.

You can call any subroutine without parentheses as long as it's been "seen" before:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;

sub bla {
    print "Bla!\n";
}

bla;
[download]

update: Ironically, a nice way to make the above fail is to use a (wrong) protoype:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;

sub bla($) {
    print "Bla!\n";
}

bla;
__END__
syntax error at test.pl line 8, near "bla;"
Execution of test.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
[download]

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

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Re^3: The purpose of prototypes in perl subroutines by jjhorner (Hermit) on Apr 13, 2005 at 15:32 UTC
It is the same thing. Ask Nat Torkington, as that is what he calls it. Probably pure semantics, but either way, it is considered prototyping. J. J. Horner CISSP,CCNA,CHSS,CHP,blah,blah,blah	[reply]
Re^4: The purpose of prototypes in perl subroutines by Joost (Canon) on Apr 13, 2005 at 15:45 UTC
But if you accept that terminology, all subroutine declarations are prototyping, and in a sense they are, but since perl's prototyping is rather different from other language's, I think that would only confuse people even more. FWIW, I think that the whole term is an unfortunate choice in perl. "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply]
Re^4: The purpose of prototypes in perl subroutines by brian_d_foy (Abbot) on Apr 13, 2005 at 17:36 UTC
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. This isn't just semantics, either. Perhaps you give us the reference where you found Nat talking about this sort of prototype (article name or page number would work). IF you are talking about the "Cryptocontext" article, I think you've misunderstood something. -- brian d foy <brian@stonehenge.com>	[reply]
Re^5: The purpose of prototypes in perl subroutines by jjhorner (Hermit) on Apr 13, 2005 at 17:41 UTC
Okay, Page 20, "Computer Science & Perl Programming", edited by Jon Orwant, Chapter 3, article title is Perfect Programming. I'm not making this up: Quote: When it's in effect, you can't use the bareword style of calling subroutines with no arguments (e.g. $result = mysub;) unless the subroutine was declared before its use, either with a prototype or with the subroutine definition itself. EndQuote: `use strict 'subs'; print count; # an error with use strict 'subs' sub count; # prototyping count() is sufficient print count; # Not an error because Perl now knows about count()` [download] J. J. Horner CISSP,CCNA,CHSS,CHP,blah,blah,blah	[reply] [d/l]
Re^6: The purpose of prototypes in perl subroutines by brian_d_foy (Abbot) on Apr 13, 2005 at 18:12 UTC