Re: use vars (expound a bit?)

in reply to use vars

I've employed both these methods for declaring variables with use strict, but like jeffa, am unclear on the difference(s) between my and use vars.

merlyn's response is, as always, authoritative and to the point. Would a grokful Monk expound a bit, to help an amatuer Perler understand?

Update: Oops - Autark explained very well the lexical vs. global aspect. That's what I get for composing a question and not posting till after finishing a good show on The History Channel. :^)

Now I'm merely confused on the main:foo part. To my knowledge, I've never "fully-qualified" a variable, yet my cobbled-up scripts work anyway. At the risk of asking a dumb question - under what circumstances is it necessary to fully qualify?

Comment on Re: use vars (expound a bit?)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
(chromatic) RE: Re: use vars (expound a bit?) by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 17, 2000 at 08:22 UTC
You would fully qualify a 'package' variable when you're in another package. For example, if you use the DBI module, you can access error information for the last call in $DBI::errstr. Presumably, your code is in the main:: package, or another self-defined package. Saying $DBI:: (variable name) tells Perl where to find (variable name), since it's not in the current package.	[reply]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom