in reply to wantarray documentation in 5.8.7

What is meant is that wantarray is meaningless if there is no calling context. Which is the case in a BEGIN, CHECK, INIT or END block, a DESTROY method, and the "top level of a file" when you're executing that file. Obviously, it has not much to do with the physical location of the code in a file (although the "top level" is often located at the top).

Of course, you could change it to "when there's no calling context", but then half a year down the road, someone will find that sentence confusing, and change to "top level of a file".

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Re^2: wantarray documentation in 5.8.7
by polettix (Vicar) on Jul 25, 2005 at 13:39 UTC
    Of course, you could change it to "when there's no calling context", but then half a year down the road, someone will find that sentence confusing, and change to "top level of a file".
    Which will make it confusing for others. A no-op seems wrong to me in this case; maybe the better thing is to make an effort to definitely clarify this matter.

    What we really lack here is maybe a formal definition of context, and in particular of when you have a context and when you don't have it. I know that perldata has an entire section about context, but the definition results quite foggy IMHO, and resorts to wantarray to disambiguate. The classic dog-biting-its-own-tail problem. Moreover, I'm not in the position to propose an alternative, and this is quite frustrating.

    Flavio
    perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

    Don't fool yourself.
[reply]
      Moreover, I'm not in the position to propose an alternative, and this is quite frustrating.
      Anyone is in the position to propose any alternative. It's done by sending a message to p5p, stating your case. Attaching a patch to your case strengthens it.
[reply]

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