On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 08:05:47AM +1100, Damian Conway wrote:
: I still think my original:
:
: sub bar(; $foo = $topic) is given($topic) {...}
:
: is the appropriate compromise.
Won't fly. Referring to something lexical before it's declared is
a no-no. I think we need some other way of indicating the outer topic
if we're gonna use it as a default, and I think we do want that.
Perhaps it's a good time for a real keyword for use in defaults:
sub bar(; $foo = topic) {...}
That would let us work it nicely for arrays too:
sub bar(*@args = [topic]) {...}
Without the [], people might get confused about what to do with a $_
containing an array reference. But maybe that means it should really
be a magical variable so we can distinguish
sub bar(*@args = $<mumble>) {...} # default to [$_]
sub bar(*@args = @$<mumble>) {...} # default to @$_
What <mumble> might be is an interesting, er, topic.
Larry
