Re^5: RFC: beginner level script improvement (various comments)

[georgecarlin]

As I said, I'm a self-taught perl user and best considered beginner level =)

I tried explaining my reasoning behind how I accessed the args in subs.
I've been looking into oop because in this script there's a lot of expect usage and I want to create re-uasable and well structured subs. (currently that'snot the case)
Below is a case where I have used shift.

sub set_timeout {
    my $self = shift;

    my $to = $self->{timeout};

    if (@_){
        $self->{timeout} = shift;
        
    }

    return $to;    
}

In this case shift makes sense imo, although it could have just as well been written like this.

sub set_timeout {
    my $self = $_[0];

    my $to = $self->{timeout};

    if ($_[1]){
        $self->{timeout} = $_[1];
        
    }

    return $to;    
}

The reason I didn't use the index based assignment is that shift feels better here and in the documentation I read about oop they exclusively used shift accessing. However in a different scenario like below I don't think using shift in the if clause makes sense.

sub set_stuff {
    my $self = shift;
    
    if (@_){    
        $self->{stuff1} = shift;    #3 lines for one task
        $self->{stuff2} = shift;
        $self->{stuff3} = shift;
        ($self->{stuff1},$self->{stuff2},$self->{stuff3}) = @_; #1 lin
+e, same result regardless of stuff presence
    }

    return 1;    
}

So what I'm saying is I used shift when I felt like it without having a clue whether it's faster or better than index based assignment. =)

[smls]

Yes, you should of course use whatever you feel most comfortable with.

FYI, here are two even shorter ways to write that if clause... ;)

# using a loop:

if (@_) {
    $self->{$_} = shift for qw(stuff1 stuff2 stuff3);
}


# using a hash slice (probably the fastest alternative):

@$self{qw( stuff1 stuff2 stuff3 )} = @_ if @_;

(The @ sigil in front of the $self hashref is not a typo - see Slices for more info on that.)