Nathan Wiger wrote:
> 1. make a listref only for multiple values:
> @name = @{$CGI{name}} if ( ref $CGI{name} eq 'ARRAY' );
Ick. That piece of code is small enough, but it's going to end up
replicating itself everywhere %CGI is accessed. This will be a fruitful
new source of bugs when people forget to check C<ref $CGI{name}>, and a
maintenance nightmare when someone makes a small like adding "multiple"
to a select tag.
> But I don't think listrefs are needed in all contexts, since you should
> know which elements will likely have multiple values (checkboxes, etc).
Maybe (and I stress maybe) the programmer knows, but the code that
parses into %CGI doesn't know whether a parameter is from a checkbox
group with only one value checked, or something else.
> 2. make it a comma-delimited string:
> $name = $CGI{name};
> @name = split ',', $name;
> The problem arises if your data has commas in it.
Double ick.
> Maybe %CGI is tied. Fast embedded tie, like in Perl 6. :-)
It looks to me like FETCH is always called in scalar context. Even
saying C<@foo{...}> results in multiple scalar fetches. That could be
changed, I suppose, but it makes me twitch. Maybe someone who knows
ties better could comment on this.
--
Robert Mathews
Software Engineer
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