Re^2: Defining a sub within a sub: OK?

in reply to Re: Defining a sub within a sub: OK?
in thread Defining a sub within a sub: OK?

There's no sane way in which perl could handle a call to b() from the outside.
However there's nothing wrong with defining an anonymous subroutine inside another sub. Actually it's quite common, and used very often in functional programming.

Those two points are related: logically, any call to a() would redefine b() in that code, like my example below, which would only be silly. Also, that would mean that you couldn't call b() before calling a() at least once. But named subroutines are defined only once, at compile time*, which makes the whole construct iffy.

sub a {
    my $x = 3;
    *b = sub {
        print $x, $/;
    };
}
[download]

* The reasoning behind sub NAME { } constructs being realized early is so that you can call subroutines even if their definition is "later" in the code.

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

Comment on Re^2: Defining a sub within a sub: OK? Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^3: Defining a sub within a sub: OK? by moritz (Cardinal) on Oct 14, 2009 at 23:06 UTC
* The reasoning behind sub NAME { } constructs being realized early is so that you can call subroutines even if their definition is "later" in the code. That's mostly true, but not very precise. If a subroutine is defined after it is called, the call has to use parenthesis. If it doesn't, it's interpreted as a string literal (or as an error if `strict subs` are in effect). `$ perl -E 'say 1, foo; sub foo { 3 }' 1foo $ perl -E 'sub foo { 3 }; say 1, foo' 13 $ perl -E 'say 1, foo(); sub foo { 3 }' 13` [download] However it the call uses parenthesis, there's no need it has to be know at compile time at all: `$ perl -E 'eval "sub foo { 3 }"; say 1, foo();' 13` [download] But I think for this discussion it's more important to ask when the lexical pad of `sub a` is being built and destroyed. As long as the `a` is not part of the call chain, `$x` is in no lex pad, and `sub b` can't work in a meaningful way. Perl 6 - links to (nearly) everything that is Perl 6.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Defining a sub within a sub: OK? by ikegami (Patriarch) on Oct 15, 2009 at 01:19 UTC
If a subroutine is defined after it is called, the call has to use parenthesis. Not quite. If a subroutine is declared after it is called, the call has to use parenthesis. You can always define it afterwards. `>perl -wle"sub foo; foo; sub foo { print 'Hi!' }" Hi!` [download] Granted, it's very rare for a subroutine to be declared somewhere other than when it's being defined.	[reply] [d/l]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom