in reply to Re^2: BEGIN and compile-time
in thread BEGIN and compile-time

It is more appropriate to test $@. 
eval "use Foo::Bar";
if ($@) {
    warn "Eval failed: $@";
}

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Re^4: BEGIN and compile-time
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Nov 10, 2006 at 19:40 UTC

    I like 

    eval { require Foo::Bar }
   or warn "Eval failed: $@";

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    Since require only returns true or an exception. The import can be done later, although I usually don't want to import from a dynamically loaded module.

    Update: Oops, silly me! Replaced eval "" with eval {}. Thanks tye.

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Re^4: BEGIN and compile-time ($@)
by tye (Sage) on Nov 10, 2006 at 19:39 UTC
    It is more appropriate to test $@.

    Oh, I disagree. There are too many cases where $@ doesn't survive. It is more fool-proof (and one of my "best practices") to check the return value of eval "....; 1" to determine whether or not eval failed (and then to use $@ to report what the error was, though $@ might no long contain this information).

    - tye        

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      That's a good point.
      Could you provide an example of where a failed eval "use Foo" does not result in $@ being populated?
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        It usually involves a "broken" object DESTROY method, usually one that uses eval but forgets to local( $@ ).

        - tye        

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