scope subroutine argument with "our"

[pacmac]

Hello All,

I'm trying to understand someone else's code. It's a mod_perl
PerlAccessHandler.

I'm not sure what's accomplished by "our" scoping an already-our-
scoped variable when passed as an argument to a subroutine. See the
way check_pwd() is called below. Does doing this make a copy? I don't
get it.

Can someone please enlighten me?
PM

package myControl;

use strict;

use [typical Apache2 modules];

our $PWD_SECRET = '128XYZ345';

sub handler {
my $r = shift;
...
my ($stat, $msg) = check_pwd($r, our $PWD_SECRET);
...
}

sub check_pwd {
my $r = shift;
my $secret = shift;

... do stuff ...
return (1, 'OK');
}

 

[Uri Guttman]

p> I'm not sure what's accomplished by "our" scoping an already-our-
p> scoped variable when passed as an argument to a subroutine. See the
p> way check_pwd() is called below. Does doing this make a copy? I don't
p> get it.

p> package myControl;

p> our $PWD_SECRET = '128XYZ345';

p> sub handler {
p> my $r = shift;
p> ...
p> my ($stat, $msg) = check_pwd($r, our $PWD_SECRET);
p> ...
p> }

AFAIK it doesn't do anything special. the outer our is file scoped so
the inner one is redundant. both will refer to the same package
variable. the coder probably didn't understand the scoping rules of our
and thought our needed to be used in front of each use of that
variable. it only needs to be used the first time in a given scope.

uri

 

[C.DeRykus]

Hello All,

I'm trying to understand someone else's code. It's a mod_perl
PerlAccessHandler.

I'm not sure what's accomplished by "our" scoping an already-our-
scoped variable when passed as an argument to a subroutine. See the
way check_pwd() is called below. Does doing this make a copy? I don't
get it.

The second "our" will draw a warning too if 'use warnings' is
in effect:

"our" variable $PWD_SECRET redeclared at ....

 

[Uri Guttman]

CD> The second "our" will draw a warning too if 'use warnings' is
CD> in effect:

you caught something there i missed but i wouldn't redeclare anyhow. if
both declarations were in the same namespace they would refer to the
same variable so the code still works. i bet since it is under mod_perl
the warnings (if ever seen) are tucked away in some log and only happen
at startup anyway. still a bad coding thing.

uri