perlsub - Perl subroutines To declare subroutines: sub NAME; # A "forward" declaration. sub NAME BLOCK # A declaration and a definition. To define an anonymous subroutine at runtime: $subref = sub BLOCK; To import subroutines: use PACKAGE qw(NAME1 NAME2 NAME3); To call subroutines: &NAME # Passes current @_ to subroutine. &NAME(LIST); # Parens required with & form. NAME(LIST); # & is optional with parens. NAME LIST; # Parens optional if predeclared/imported. Any arguments passed to the routine come in as array @_, that is ($_[0], $_[1], ...). The array @_ is a local array, but its values are references to the actual scalar parameters. The return value of the subroutine is the value of the last expression evaluated, and can be either an array value or a scalar value. Alternatively, a return statement may be used to specify the returned value and exit the subroutine. To create local variables see the local() and my() operators. A subroutine may be called using the "&" prefix. The "&" is optional in Perl 5, and so are the parens if the subroutine has been predeclared. (Note, however, that the "&" is NOT optional when you're just naming the subroutine, such as when it's used as an argument to defined() or undef(). Nor is it optional when you want to do an indirect subroutine call with a subroutine name or reference using the &$subref() or &{$subref}() constructs. See the perlref manpage for more on that.) Example: sub MAX { my $max = pop(@_); foreach $foo (@_) { $max = $foo if $max < $foo; } $max; } ... $bestday = &MAX($mon,$tue,$wed,$thu,$fri); Example: # get a line, combining continuation lines # that start with whitespace sub get_line { $thisline = $lookahead; LINE: while ($lookahead = <STDIN>) { if ($lookahead =~ /^[ \t]/) { $thisline .= $lookahead; } else { last LINE; } } $thisline; } $lookahead = <STDIN>; # get first line while ($_ = get_line()) { ... } Use array assignment to a local list to name your formal arguments: sub maybeset { my($key, $value) = @_; $foo{$key} = $value unless $foo{$key}; } This also has the effect of turning call-by-reference into call-by-value, since the assignment copies the values. Subroutines may be called recursively. If a subroutine is called using the "&" form, the argument list is optional. If omitted, no @_ array is set up for the subroutine; the @_ array at the time of the call is visible to subroutine instead. &foo(1,2,3); # pass three arguments foo(1,2,3); # the same foo(); # pass a null list &foo(); # the same &foo; # pass no arguments--more efficient If a module wants to create a private subroutine that cannot be called from outside the module, it can declare a lexical variable containing an anonymous sub reference: my $subref = sub { ... } &$subref(1,2,3); As long as the reference is never returned by any function within the module, no outside module can see the subroutine, since its name is not in any package's symbol table.

Passing Symbol Table Entries
[Note: The mechanism described in this section works fine in Perl 5, but the new reference mechanism is generally easier to work with. See the perlref manpage.] Sometimes you don't want to pass the value of an array to a subroutine but rather the name of it, so that the subroutine can modify the global copy of it rather than working with a local copy. In perl you can refer to all the objects of a particular name by prefixing the name with a star: *foo. This is often known as a "type glob", since the star on the front can be thought of as a wildcard match for all the funny prefix characters on variables and subroutines and such. When evaluated, the type glob produces a scalar value that represents all the objects of that name, including any filehandle, format or subroutine. When assigned to, it causes the name mentioned to refer to whatever "*" value was assigned to it. Example: sub doubleary { local(*someary) = @_; foreach $elem (@someary) { $elem *= 2; } } doubleary(*foo); doubleary(*bar); Note that scalars are already passed by reference, so you can modify scalar arguments without using this mechanism by referring explicitly to $_[0] etc. You can modify all the elements of an array by passing all the elements as scalars, but you have to use the * mechanism (or the equivalent reference mechanism) to push, pop or change the size of an array. It will certainly be faster to pass the typeglob (or reference). Even if you don't want to modify an array, this mechanism is useful for passing multiple arrays in a single LIST, since normally the LIST mechanism will merge all the array values so that you can't extract out the individual arrays.

Overriding builtin functions
Many builtin functions may be overridden, though this should only be tried occasionally and for good reason. Typically this might be done by a package attempting to emulate missing builtin functionality on a non-Unix system. Overriding may only be done by importing the name from a module--ordinary predeclaration isn't good enough. However, the subs pragma (compiler directive) lets you, in effect, predeclare subs via the import syntax, and these names may then override the builtin ones: use subs 'chdir', 'chroot', 'chmod', 'chown'; chdir $somewhere; sub chdir { ... } Library modules should not in general export builtin names like "open" or "chdir" as part of their default @EXPORT list, since these may sneak into someone else's namespace and change the semantics unexpectedly. Instead, if the module adds the name to the @EXPORT_OK list, then it's possible for a user to import the name explicitly, but not implicitly. That is, they could say use Module 'open'; and it would import the open override, but if they said use Module; they would get the default imports without the overrides.

Autoloading
If you call a subroutine that is undefined, you would ordinarily get an immediate fatal error complaining that the subroutine doesn't exist. (Likewise for subroutines being used as methods, when the method doesn't exist in any of the base classes of the class package.) If, however, there is an AUTOLOAD subroutine defined in the package or packages that were searched for the original subroutine, then that AUTOLOAD subroutine is called with the arguments that would have been passed to the original subroutine. The fully qualified name of the original subroutine magically appears in the $AUTOLOAD variable in the same package as the AUTOLOAD routine. The name is not passed as an ordinary argument because, er, well, just because, that's why... Most AUTOLOAD routines will load in a definition for the subroutine in question using eval, and then execute that subroutine using a special form of "goto" that erases the stack frame of the AUTOLOAD routine without a trace. (See the standard AutoLoader module, for example.) But an AUTOLOAD routine can also just emulate the routine and never define it. A good example of this is the standard Shell module, which can treat undefined subroutine calls as calls to Unix programs. There are mechanisms available for modules to help them split themselves up into autoloadable files to be used with the standard AutoLoader module. See the document on extensions.