Why do multiple requires not work?

[srinigs]

Hi

Supposing i have a module Mod.pm which has a statement "require /a/b/script" and there is a script run.pl which has the statements "use Mod" and "require /a/b/script", then, when any routine inside /a/b/script is called from run.pl, I get the "Undefined routine ..." error. This error does not appear when the require statement is removed from Mod.pm module, but the vice versa is not true (ie when I remove the require statement from run.pl and retain the one in Mod.pm, the error still persists).

Can you please explain why multiple use statements are not a problem but multiple "require" statements cause an issue?

[bart]

You can't use slashes in the name of the required file. You can use either double colons, and no file extension (".pm" is assumed), or you can use a string (a quoted literal or a variable) with a path with slashes and with file extension. So you can do

require "/a/b/script";

if it has no file extension, or

require "/a/b/script.pl";

if it has ".pl" as file extension.

[DrHyde]

require checks %INC to see if a file has already been loaded. This is explained in the documentation.

use also checks %INC (because it is exactly equivalent to BEGIN { require Module; Module->import( LIST ); }) but regardless of whether the module was already loaded or not it still calls the import() method.