@_ & @ARGV

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

Please explain how and why value of @_ is keeps changing in same subroutine "formatlist" in below code

[root@mail ~]# perl test.pl -w
-w out  return
Command Line in return
Command Line: -w

[root@mail ~]# cat test.pl
sub formatlist
{
    my @list = @_;
    print @_, ' out  return', "\n";

    return sub
           {
               print @_, ' in return', "\n";
               my $title = shift;
               print "$title: ", join(' ',@list),"\n";
           }
}
$arguments = formatlist(@ARGV);
&$arguments('Command Line');

[root@mail ~]#
[download]

Comment on @_ & @ARGV Download Code

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Re: @_ & @ARGV by moritz (Cardinal) on Oct 07, 2012 at 14:48 UTC
@_ contains the arguments to the current (inner-most) subroutine, which is why the @_ in the inner subroutine is different from that of the outer subroutine. shift acts on @_ by default, which is why it gets the first argument to the inner-most function. Strictly speaking, `my @list = @_; print @_, ' out return', "\n";` [download] is the only content directly in sub formatlist, the rest is in an inner functio which has its own @_. Perl 6 - the future is here, just unevenly distributed	[reply] [d/l]
Re: @_ & @ARGV by NetWallah (Canon) on Oct 07, 2012 at 14:56 UTC
The @_ parameter to a subroutine gets populated at RUN TIME (or the time the subroutine gets called), with whatever is passed to it at that time. In tHe first call, you pass @ARGV to the 'formlist' sub. This returns an ANONYMOUS sub that is assigned to $arguments. You call the Anonymous sub, pasisng it "Command Line", which, as you can see is received and printed just fine. Perhaps we can explain it better if you tell us what you were expecting, and why. In case you were unaware, you created a "closure" around @list, preserving it's value. I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it. -SNL	[reply]
Re^2: @_ & @ARGV by Athanasius (Archbishop) on Oct 07, 2012 at 15:12 UTC
Closures are discussed in perlsub, but the best explanation of closures that I know of is in Chapter 3 of Higher-Order Perl by Dominus, available free online at http://hop.perl.plover.com/. Hope that helps, Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum	[reply]
Re^2: @_ & @ARGV by tobyink (Canon) on Oct 07, 2012 at 15:19 UTC
Further, only lexical variables can be closed over. `@_` is not a lexical variable (it's not declared with `my`) so can't be closed over. `perl -E'sub Monkey::do{say$_,for@_,do{($monkey=[caller(0)]->[3])=~s{::}{ }and$monkey}}"Monkey say"->Monkey::do'`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: @_ & @ARGV by dushyant (Acolyte) on Oct 07, 2012 at 17:41 UTC
Thanks for the replies guys, now I got it. I was expecting the value of @_ will remain same (“-w”) throughout the code. But for subroutine formatlist the value of @_ is “-w” and for anonymous subroutine @_ is “Command Line”. I removed the last line `&$arguments(‘Command Line’)` from above code, and got “-w out return” printed.	[reply] [d/l]