On Sun, Jul 27, 2003 at 10:40:29PM -0700, Bryan Harris wrote: >>> Is there a generally accepted way to get the "base" of a >>> filename [...] without using any modules? >> >> Sure, that's fine -- but why don't you want to use modules? >> >> File::Basename has been in the core distribution for a long >> time. > > Maybe I just always felt that if you use modules, you lose > portability and the purity of the language. Is that true?
Nope. In fact, the modules are often *more* portable than ad-hoc code to do the same thing. For instance, File::Spec knows all about the VMS filesystem. CGI.pm knows how to spell CRLF in ebcidic. There are lots of similar examples. Yours isn't really one of them, though... :-) > If a module is in the core distribution, why doesn't it get > incorporated into the language itself? Many languages depend on a "standard library". Perl is no different. It's a bit unusual in that lots of I/O and networking functions *are* part of the language, but if all the core modules were rolled into the language as well, you'd have thousands of new keywords conflicting with everything and /usr/bin/perl would be a 10MB colossus. -- Steve :: "Hyperbole's bad, mkay?" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
