in reply to Re^4: Making a variable in a sub retain its value between calls
in thread Making a variable in a sub retain its value between calls

I'm talking about program run-time, not any file's run-time. If you have a module Foo that uses INIT you'll get a "Too late to run INIT block" warning if you require Foo during program run-time. E.g. you have 

# Foo.pm
INIT { print 'Foo' }

# foo.pl
require Foo;

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That won't execute like one would hope. By using INIT to initialize variables to constants you impose a completely unnecessary constraint on your module. No module that uses your Foo can be loaded at program run-time, meaning you can't ever use Foo, directly or indirectly, in any module that is dynamically loaded (like plugin modules). That's quite a serious limitation.

There's absolutely no reason, in general, for the initialization of the typical static variable to not happen at compile-time.

ihb

See perltoc if you don't know which perldoc to read!

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Re^6: Making a variable in a sub retain its value between calls
by tlm (Prior) on Apr 19, 2005 at 00:36 UTC

    We disagree on what we consider general programming practice vs. programming for special cases, but it seems to me that this is a tomayto-tomahto difference of opinion.

    Update: Perhaps I should clarify that, most of my programming is scripting, not module-writing, and of the module writing I do, 90% of it is OO classes. In the case of scripts, INIT is perfectly fine; it gives me a hook that I know will happen after all the BEGINs I have scattered throughout my code. In my OO code I rarely if ever need static variables.

    the lowliest monk

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      I assure you, it certainly isn't a tomayto-tomahto difference of opinion. This isn't about opinions. This is about not putting extremely excessive limitations on your code without reason. I get the feeling that you don't realize how far the consequences propagate -- the consequences go far beyond your reach as a module author. (Yes, the world will probably end, too. ;-)) Any user that uses your module will be effected by this completely useless limitation.

      See CHECK and INIT under mod_perl and call a modules INIT-section for examples of when INIT can cause trouble. (The second problem is completely unnecessary and wouldn't have been a problem if the author would've understood the purpose of INIT, as I point out in my reply.)

      Reply to the update:
      Right, if you use it only for scripts it's OK, but if I'll have an opinion then it's that it's far better to use a solution that, in general, always works over a solution that, in general, sometimes works.

      I'm curious. When do you need to use INITs to delay execution after all BEGIN blocks in scripts?

      ihb

      See perltoc if you don't know which perldoc to read!

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        I'm curious. When do you need to use INITs to delay execution after all BEGIN blocks in scripts?

        The point is that I don't have to even think about it. This is all very simple: I have a script, I have various bits of initialization code that need to be executed before run time scattered throughout; so I put them INIT blocks, without having to give a second's thought to what possible conflict any one of these INIT blocks may have with some BEGIN block later in the code.

        The point of using INIT blocks to solve the static variable initialization problem is to give the programmer the flexibility to arrange code as desired; otherwise it would have been sufficient to stick all subs with static variables at the top of the file. If one puts this initialization code in BEGIN blocks now one goes back to having to worry about the position of these initalization BEGIN blocks relative to other BEGIN blocks (including implicit ones in use statements) in the file, which makes no sense to me.

        the lowliest monk

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