Re: Frivolous function names

[demerphq]

Personally I probably wouldn't create two different methods for this, as other posters have observed practically any names you come up with could be misunderstood or end up being so long as to be unweildy. Instead I would create one sub that took a parameter to indicate if it should autovivyfy or not, something like

use constant CREATE_IF_NOT_EXIST=>1;
use constant NO_CREATE=>0;
sub get_foo {
    my $flag=shift || 0;
    #.....
}

my $obj=get_foo(CREATE_IF_NOT_EXIST);
my $obj_or_undef=get_foo(NO_CREATE);

IMO this makes for cleaner and easier to document and remember code. You could even make it die if the sub does not get a parameter, forcing the client to always call it with an appropriate param.

Yves / DeMerphq
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