Further to Some thoughts around the "is Perl code maintainable" discussion, today I inherited some code written by an external contractor. Here is one of his functions that caught my eye:
sub file_mode {
my ($file) = @_;
if( ! -f $file ) {
return -1;
}
my $dummy;
my $mode;
($dummy,$dummy, $mode, $dummy, $dummy, $dummy, $dummy, $dummy, $dumm
+y,
$dummy, $dummy, $dummy, $dummy) = stat($file);
return $mode;
}
Maybe he thought he was writing in a very "clear" style, but I had to reach for my sunglasses looking through this code. :-)
Assuming that I don't change the (dubious) interface, my instinct would be to write this function as:
sub file_mode {
-f shift or return -1;
return (stat(_))[2];
}
Then I thought, maybe a Perl novice would find the original function easier to understand and maintain. I guess it's like writing, you should write to a level appropriate to your audience. What do you think?
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