Re: [MacPerl] Problem with MacPerl 5.06

[Michael Kearney <violet@westol.com>]

This script from the Perl FAQ <http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/Q4.3.html> works 
as expected using 'my' in MacPerl 5.06:


    #!/usr/local/bin/perl
    $myvar = 10;
    $localvar = 10;
    print "Before the sub call - my: $myvar, local: $localvar\n";
    &sub1();
    print "After the sub call - my: $myvar, local: $localvar\n";
    exit(0);
    sub sub1 {
        my $myvar;
        local $localvar;
        $myvar = 5;     # Only in this block
        $localvar = 20; # Accessible to children
    
        print "Inside first sub call - my: $myvar, local: $localvar\n";
        &sub2();
    }
    sub sub2 {
        print "Inside second sub - my: $myvar, local: $localvar\n";
    }


and demonstrates how variables declared with 'my' are visible only in the 
block which names them. So my question is, in your example which is correct, 
MacPerl or Unix-Perl? 

When declared with my, should $a be visible in testmain.pl or should it only 
be visible in test.pl?


Michael

>  I've run across a difference in behavior between MacPerl 5.06 and Perl 
> 5.001m on a Sun workstation.  This difference has been annoying in 
> my attempt to get libwww-perl-5b6 to work on my Mac, so I wrote a 
> little test code to demonstrate the problem.  Since I want to make 
> sure that it's not something on my Mac (Powerbook 165, 7.5.1) but is or 
> is not a problem with MacPerl, I'm sending this to the list rather than 
> to Matthias directly. 
>  
> The two files are short, so I'm not going to bother MIME'ing them 
>  
> test.pl: 
>  
> #!/usr/local/bin/perl 
> package test; 
>  
> #$a = "test"; 
> #my $a = "test"; 
> local $a = "test"; 
>  
> sub test {my $b = $a;return $b}; 
> 1; 
>  
> testmain.pl: 
>  
> #!/usr/local/bin/perl 
>  
> require "test.pl"; 
>  
> $a = test::test(); 
> print "$test::a, $a\n"; 
>  
> Running testmain with the declaration line in test changed gives 
> the following 
>  
>              MacPerl 5.06                     Sun Perl 5.001m $
> a:            test, test                        test, test local $
> a:          ,                                 , my $
> a:             ,                                 , test 
>  
>  
> The latter is what's been the problem with lwp5b6, because the 
> authors universally declare variables "my" outside of routines, 
> and MacPerl promptly forgets their existence and initial values.  (I 
> can get it working simply by removing the "my", but there's a lot of 
> them.) 
>  
> So is this some bizzare problem with my setup or is it a problem 
> with MacPerl? 
> --- 
> -------- 
> Paul J. Schinder 
> NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 
> Code 693, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA 
> schinder@pjstoaster.pg.md.us 
>  
>