[Pdx-pm] sub calling logic

Ovid curtis_ovid_poe at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 22 18:24:29 CST 2003


--- "Roderick A. Anderson" <raanders at acm.org> wrote:
> Yeah.  I almost, in a fit of madness, did this once.  My current
> script
> has far too many output subs.  I'm trying to use the idea above to
> reduce
> them to one generalized subroutine and pass in the differing types.

Well, if helps, here's a program that I use a lot at work to summarize
web tests that run nightly:

  # a bunch of use module statements
  # initialize variables

  copy($mail_file, $mail_local) or die "Could not copy $mail_file to
$mail_local: $!";

  my $folder = new Mail::Folder('mbox', $mail_local);
  print message_summary($folder, $folder->message_list);

  unlink $mail_local or die "Could not unlink $mail_local: $!";
  exit(0);

You'll notice that, with the exception of tests on my file operations,
there's no logic here.  There are only commands.  By pushing my
iterations and conditionals as far down as I can, I reduce each logical
portion of the program to the least complicated structure that I can. 
I find I write fewer bugs that way, but your mileage may vary.

Cheers,
Ovid

=====
Silence is Evil            http://users.easystreet.com/ovid/philosophy/indexdecency.htm
Ovid                       http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=17000
Web Programming with Perl  http://users.easystreet.com/ovid/cgi_course/



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