In this case, it's just a useless use of (). You could just do my @incdirs;, and accomplish the same thing (my theory is that it's common for new perl programmers to add the "= ()" when declaring an empty array). When you want to empty an existing array, it can be useful to do @incdirs = ();, without the my. | [reply]
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It could also be cargo-cultism. I have seen coding style documents that require explicitly initializing all variables. No defaults allowed.
Update: Bah. Rethinking this one. I understand and (strangly for me, normally opinionated) agree with both sides (could be cargo cult and initializing variable, even to the default, is good) on this one. I need to do some introspection on this to see if they are mutually exclusive. I am not certain that they are.
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Are you saying that following coding style documents is cargo-cult programming? I tend to think that one should follow coding guidelines, no matter how stupid. If they suck, change the guidelines or change your job.
I'm sure you meant that it could be cargo-cult OR it could be adherence to a 'no defaults' style guideline/preference. The only way to know for sure would be to ask the original programmer why he wrote the code that way.
Consider the following code:
my $foo = undef;
The initialization to undef totally unnecessary, but it does communicate an idea: $foo really should be undef, it's not just an oversight.
While I don't use either unnecessary initialization, I don't see them as harmful.
Despite my personal preferences, I can see why someone would choose to explicitly initialize ALL their variables. It's not a bad habit to be in.
I guess the main thing I am trying to say is, don't be in too much of a rush to call something cargo-cult. What we have here could be CC code or it could be the result of a decision based on some painful lessons.
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IMO it's always a good idea to initialise your variables, even if you initialise them to the same value as what the language would have done in the first place. It's a good idea because it teaches you good habits for when you use a language which doesn't have sensible defaults, such as C.
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The array @incdirs is defined as a lexically scoped variable and initialized to be empty. The empty pair of parentheses mean an empty list here. Lexically scoped means this variable is visible only in the block where it is defined. | [reply] |
Note that, as runrig implied, the = () is redundant. Arrays and hashes start out life empty - there is no need to explicitly empty them. Scalars on the other hand start out with the value undef. It is common to declare and initialise scalars at the same time and to do so immediately before the scalar's value is first used where possible (to reduce scope of the variable to a minimum).
Perl reduces RSI - it saves typing
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my (undef, $a, undef, $b, @rest, $c) = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8);
@rest will be greedily assigned (5, 6, 7, 8) whereas ($a, $b, $c) will be (2, 4, undef) respectively. | [reply]
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