kingofking has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Dear all,

I am trying to find whether a particular subroutine exists or not.

so far I have tried...is 

if (&test;) {
  test();
}
sub test {
 #do something;
}

[download]

If the subroutine "test" does not exists, it is popuping an error as :

Undefined subroutine &main::test called at script.pl

Kindly suggest me.

Thanks
King

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: how to find a subroutine exists or not
by revdiablo (Prior) on Apr 20, 2006 at 14:31 UTC

    Update: Ah. This works, but only sort of. See diotalevi's response below, as well as the other posts in the thread.

    This should work:

    if (my $coderef = __PACKAGE__->can("test")) {
    $coderef->();
}

    [download]

    Update: it might be worth pointing out that this is equivalent:

    if (__PACKAGE__->can("test")) {
    test();
}

    [download]

    And if you're in the main package, this is as well:

    if (main->can("test")) {
    test();
}

    [download]
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[d/l]
[select]

      This works, sort of. It also brings in @ISA and any overloaded ->can(...) methods so you might find that __PACKAGE__->can( 'test' ) is true even if the current package doesn't have a &test function. You should have said defined &test which is the documented and backwards compatible way to test for this.

      ⠤⠤ ⠙⠊⠕⠞⠁⠇⠑⠧⠊

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[d/l]
[select]
      I think __PACKAGE__ should be mentioned in perlvar. I understand that it is not a "variable", strictly speaking, but it is a symbol with special meaning, and perlvar seems the obvious place to start looking for documentation.

      Perhaps just a mention of the name and pointer to perldata, so a quick grep can catch it.

[reply]

        It's not a symbol, it's a special literal that's documented in perldata. That said, a mention of it in perlvar probably makes sense, too.

        -xdg

        Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.

[reply]
Re: how to find a subroutine exists or not
by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Apr 20, 2006 at 14:57 UTC

    This should do it, 

    test() if defined *test{CODE};

    [download]
    That directly checks the symbol table to see if *test contains a code definition.

    After Compline,
    Zaxo

[reply]
[d/l]

      This does not work when the symbol is a constant sub and you're using perl 5.9.3+. defined &test s the documented and backwards compatible way to test for this.

      ⠤⠤ ⠙⠊⠕⠞⠁⠇⠑⠧⠊

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[d/l]
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[d/l]
Re: how to find a subroutine exists or not
by sen (Hermit) on Apr 20, 2006 at 17:19 UTC

    Hi

    Try this one. 

     print "Exists\n"     if exists &subroutine;
 print "Defined\n"     if defined &subroutine;

    [download]

    Thanks

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[d/l]
Re: how to find a subroutine exists or not
by pileofrogs (Priest) on Apr 20, 2006 at 21:06 UTC

    What about plain old...

    eval { test() };
if ( $@ =~ /Undefined subroutine/ ) {
    # we know it doesn't exits
}

    [download]

    Oh, wait, I think I get it. We want to know if it exists before we run it...

[reply]
[d/l]
      eval { rm_min_rf_root() }
was_lucky() if $@ =~ /Undefined subroutine/;

      [download]
      ;-)
[reply]
[d/l]

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