While perl does not have a formal mechanism for finally blocks, you can indeed easily emulate them with an object that has a destructor. (update: MeowChow beat me by pointing out an easier/already-in-CPAN way to do this.) 

#>>> DummyDestructor.pm
package DummyDestructor;
use strict;
use vars qw(@ISA @EXPORT);
require Exporter;
@ISA = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT = qw(make_finally);

sub make_finally (\&) {
  return bless $_[0], __PACKAGE__;
}

sub DESTROY {
  $_[0]->();
}
#>>> some perl script
use DummyDestructor;
...
{
  ... code ...
  my $final = make_finally { ... code ... } # beware! 
                              # no access to @_ in finally
  ... code ...
}

[download]

A more straight-forward alternative is eval and a bare block: 

sub f {
  my @return;
  ... more code ... # vars needed in "finally" must be
                    # defined here!
  eval{{
    ... and more ...
    # instead of return $retval you'd need:
      @return = $retval and last;
    ... yet more code ...
  }}
  ... do clean up stuff here ...
  die $@ if $@;
  return @return;
}

[download]

In reply to Re: 'finally' block in Perl? by wog
in thread 'finally' block in Perl? by John M. Dlugosz

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