DCPM: De-SWENing

[Matthew Browning]

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On Saturday 20 September 2003 20:30, Simon Waters wrote:
> One thing I still find tricky is what to prefix variables with in
> Perl.
>
> Am I right in thinking that Net::POP3 ->list() is returning a
> reference to a hash, not a hash, hence the $mail->{$msg}, as
> programmers seem to say "returns a has" when they mean "returns a
> reference to a hash", or am I just showing my lack of sleep :(
>

What you've done is right.  Net::POP3->list does return a reference to 
a hash (see line 201 of the module).  You correctly iterate over the 
keys to assign the corresponding value to $size in your loop.

If you like, you could say %{$mail}{$msg) instead of $mail->{$msg} as a 
matter of personal taste; the arrow to dereference is more commonly 
seen.

> Use at your own risk, no warranty applies. Comments on how it might
> be better written gratefully received. Feel free to pass onto people
> even less skiled at Perl but with more viruses (i.e. desparate).
>

If it works for you then it is right ;)  What happens if I send you a 
genuine email with an uppercase subject for some convoluted but 
legitimate reason?

I don't tend to use parentheses where there is no method argument. It 
could be a bit shorter because you copy values in a couple of places 
but that can't matter on something this size.

If you want to be really humbled, perlmonks.org usually does the job.


- -- 
http://matthewb.org/public_key.txt

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