It is not what is executed in the else block, but what is execute after.
if (expression) {
statement (1);
}
else {
statement (2);
}
statement (3);
If statement (1) exits the enclosing scope with return/exit/die/croak, statement (3) is never executed. An if/else is the to do something different based on a condition and then continue doing what is after the construct for all cases. This implies that an else immediately after return/exit/die/croak is always useless.
The original code does it right in the first block:
sub get_filehandle {
my $self = shift;
$self->{file} = shift;
open my $fh, "<", $self->{file}
or die "can't open $self->{file}";
return $fh;
}
Which - when following the wrong method you approve of - would be
sub get_filehandle {
my $self = shift;
$self->{file} = shift;
if (open my $fh, "<", $self->{file}) {
return $fh;
}
else {
die "can't open $self->{file}";
}
}
In my way, the second block should be reduced to
sub get_lines {
my $self = shift;
$self->{file} = shift;
### get the filehandle if we don't already have one
$self->{file_handle} ||= $self->get_filehandle ($self->{file});
return readline ($self->{file_handle}) || undef;
}
That last return is arguable anyway, as the readline method can be a method that legally can return undef, "", and 0 (or any object evaluating as false) indicating that the original code was wrong to start with.
Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn
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