On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 8:22 PM, Uri Guttman <u...@stemsystems.com> wrote:
> the strange way is because that is how perl does it. perl doesn't have a > proper macro mechanism which is how many langs do constants. so it needs > something that is parsed in perl and subs with empty prototypes work > well. the compiler sees there are no allowed arguments (the empty > prototype) and that the body is just a constant with no other code. this > is then converted to a real compile time constant when used. it is wacky > but it works. normally it is best invoked with the constant pragma but > as slurp needs to be very backwards compatible i did it by hand. also > there are other ways such as the readonly module which works with scalar > vars so they can be interpolated (which constant subs can't). Now that is *exactly* what I wanted to know: concise and clear explanation of both how and why, thanks a lot. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
