On Monday 26 Apr 2010 17:16:27 Tim Bowden wrote:
> I've just realised I almost never use named arrays or hashes anymore.
> It's almost always anonymous references instead. That lead me to wonder
> what criteria experienced perl hackers have as to when to use a named
> array or hash, and when to start with an anonymous ref instead. My very
> informal criteria tends to be to use an anonymous ref from the start if
> I'm going to be passing it to a sub, and a named array or hash
> otherwise. I've found the former to be much more common. Thoughts?
>
Well, if you have an array declared with "my @array;" you can always pass it
to a function or return it using "\...@array". Likewise for a hash. I sometimes
declare variables as bona-fide lexical arrays or hashes like that to avoid the
unnecessary dereferencing (e.g: "$array_ref->[$idx]" vs. "$array[$idx]",
"@{$array_ref}" vs. "@array", etc.). and because I aim to make the scope of
most lexical variables as small as possible because long methods and functions
are a "code smell" according to the Refactoring book:
http://perl.org.il/books/0201485672.html
When the references are part of a larger expression (such as values of array
indices or hash values, or constant arguments to functions) I naturally use
the anonymous reference syntax.
Hope it helps.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
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