in reply to Re: where do you put your subs
in thread where do you put your subs

> When a sub is used before it is declared it MUST be
> referenced with parenthesis ( bar() )or the & (&bar)
> sigil. It cannot be used in bareword form ( bar ). This
> alone is enough of a reason to always declare what you
> use before you use it.

This alone is reason enough not to. God forbid we clearly seperate methods from scalars. (Sorry. I just never understood the attraction to this Perl quirk.) 

()-()                                                      ()-()
 \"/    DON'T   BLAME   ME,   I  VOTED   FOR    PACO!       \"/
  `                                                          `

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Re: Re: Re: where do you put your subs
by demerphq (Chancellor) on Mar 08, 2002 at 13:35 UTC
[reply]
      Not when dealing with objects.

      my $paco = $foo->bar;
      Is this a scalar or a call to a class method with no paramaters? Let's sift through the code to find out, oh joy!

      My main point is that subroutines are doing the majority of the work in a block of code. () at the end makes them stick out. Hi there! Being almost blind, I love having these handy little pointers in the code that I'm looking at. The fact that it the rule of law in other languages means that my subconsious is naturally drawn to them. Just because you can do something different than other languages doesn't mean that you have to.

      update: I just knew that I would put my foot in my mouth when I start talking about OO perl. ++ to both responses. (I still hate it bareword methods. :-P)

[reply]
        my $paco = $foo->bar;

        [download]
        Is this a scalar or a call to a class method with no paramaters? Let's sift through the code to find out, oh joy!

        It is and can _only_ be a method call. If it were anything (or rather the only other thing that I can think that you could mean) else it would be written as 

        my $snafu=$foo->{bar};

        [download]
        The placement of the subs at the top of a package does _not_ prevent you from using the parens style, whereas placing at the bottom _does_ prevent you from using the bareword style. Whereas the placment of subs has an indirect effect on error rates. Thus there is still no reason not to employ best practice.

        Yves / DeMerphq
        --
        When to use Prototypes?
        Advanced Sorting - GRT - Guttman Rosler Transform

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        my $paco = $foo->bar;

        [download]
        Is this a scalar or a call to a class method with no paramaters? Let's sift through the code to find out, oh joy!

        Let's sift indeed:

        my $paco =

        [download]
        Ah, we're creating a lexically scoped scalar called $paco 
        $foo

        [download]
        It has something to do with another scalar, called $foo 
        ->

        [download]
        The arrow indicates we're either going to dereference, or have method call. 
        bar

        [download]
        No [] or {}, so it's a method call. Neato, we're using objects!
        But we can't see whether $foo is a scalar holding a blessed reference (better known as object) or a scalar holding a package name. That's only because it's called $foo, because a good name would tell us.

        And do you really put package names in scalars and then use those to call class methods? It's ugly, just like using soft references. 

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