Re: Array iterator factory

Nice. I like this function more than the array iterator classes I've seen.

The &$iter; syntax in the documentation is evil though. If you use it it will break things sooner or later. It's better to change them all to $iter->(). (See perlfaq7, "What's the difference between calling a function as &foo and foo()?")

ihb

See perltoc if you don't know which perldoc to read!

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Re^2: Array iterator factory (()) by tye (Sage) on Mar 17, 2005 at 16:46 UTC
Note that `&$iter()` is just fine (it has none of the problems of `&$iter;`) and is even better than `$iter->()` in that it works on fairly old versions of Perl (though enough time has passed since the `$iter->()` syntax was introduced that few need to worry much about supporting versions of Perl that predate it). It seems that 'everyone' focuses on the & as being the problem and never mention that ampersand with parens is okay, sometimes even an advantage. Note that the both `$iter->()` and `&$iter()` ignore prototypes (since such are only enforced at compile time, a time during which perl doesn't know what function $iter might point to) and neither can be used directly with built-in functions so not even the difference between `func()` and `&func()` apply between `&$iter()` and `$iter->()`. (tye)Re: A question of style covers much of `&` and `()` and calling subroutines. - tye	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Array iterator factory (()) by ihb (Deacon) on Mar 17, 2005 at 19:12 UTC
It seems that 'everyone' focuses on the & as being the problem and never mention that ampersand with parens is okay, sometimes even an advantage. Because I've repeatedly pointed out the issue with `&foo;` I take the easy way in my replies and don't mention `&foo()` as the alternative. Instead of elaborating on the same issue once again I'll quote myself. From Re: Hash values and constants: I intentionally avoided mentioning `&` as a way of disambiguate the constant. This is because it will confuse and mislead people to think that you can do `&foo;` instead of `foo()`, which isn't the case. From Re: Re: Forward-referenceing subs: For some reason, it's much more common to drop the parenthesis when dereferencing than when making a regular subroutine call. Therefore I consistently use `$foo->()` as it doesn't leave room for such subtle unexpected behaviour as `&$foo;` presents. `ihb` See perltoc if you don't know which perldoc to read!	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Array iterator factory by Roy Johnson (Monsignor) on Mar 17, 2005 at 12:13 UTC
Good point. I was not aware of that. Code is updated accordingly. Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.	[reply]

In Section Cool Uses for Perl