[sf-perl] passing array and hash references

Rich Morin rdm at cfcl.com
Thu Sep 28 13:08:13 PDT 2006


> At 12:18 PM -0700 9/28/06, David Fetter wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 12:08:55PM -0700, Rich Morin wrote:
>>> Clues, comments, suggestions?
>>
>> Um, what is it that you want the above on?  I
>> generally pass references into functions, and
>> increasingly just one reference to a hash (named
>> parameters) per Perl Best Practices. :)

I rather thought this paragraph laid out the objective:

> #  Assume that you have a large body of code that was written
> #  in Perl 4, using typeglobs to pass arrays and hashes into
> #  functions.  You want to kill off this ancient usage, moving
> #  to a method that complies with "use strict".  However, code
> #  changes take effort and have associated risks.  So, what is
> #  the "minimal cost" strategy for achieving your goals?

If the problem were "how should I code something from scratch",
using a single parameter hash might be an appropriate suggestion.
However, if you are tackling a "large body of code", converting
it all to use this technique may not be feasible (let alone safe).

So, what IS the appropriate fix?  My code example shows several
alternatives; is any of them the clear winner?  If so, why?  If
not, what other approach(es) should be considered (and why)?

-r
-- 
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
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