Re^2: Contents of @_ using subroutine signatures with default values (flag)

[LanX]

> @_ probably wont be populated within signatured subroutines

This desire seems to originate from the performance impact of populating @_.

But this will break some compatibility to older code and make migration harder.

May I suggest a compromise to scan the functions body for the use of @_ and to dynamically decide then?

Attaching a flag to the code-ref which is evaluated by the signature code once the parser encounters @_ shouldn't be too difficult.

I hope you all have in mind that goto &sub relies on @_.

So does the debugger via @DB:_ for call stack traces.

As a side note: JS has a "arguments" array analog to @_ and performance is not JS' problem.

[dave_the_m]

The simplified answer: no, it's not that simple. If @_ isn't populated, then the signature code gets its arguments directly from the stack. If @_ gets populated, then the stack and @_ can get out of sync, e.g. by code within the signature which manipulates @_. So in that case the code must get its args from @_ rather than from the stack. So there have to be two code paths for everything.

See this p5p post for more details.

Dave.

[LanX]

> See this p5p post for more details.

Thanks Dave, I will.

... this will be a longer read this evening. OO

On a side note: I was fascinated to learn (rediscover ?), that a call &sub without arguments has full access to the callers @_.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dump qw/pp dd/;


sub foo {
    warn pp \@_;
    push @_,@_+1
}

sub tst {
    &foo;
    &foo;
    &foo;
    warn pp \@_;
}

tst(1);

 
-*- mode: compilation; default-directory: "d:/exp/" -*-
Compilation started at Tue Jul 14 12:21:10

C:/Perl_524/bin\perl.exe -w d:/exp/access_@_.pl 
[1] at d:/exp/access_@_.pl line 7.
[1, 2] at d:/exp/access_@_.pl line 7.
[1, 2, 3] at d:/exp/access_@_.pl line 7.
[1 .. 4] at d:/exp/access_@_.pl line 15.

Compilation finished at Tue Jul 14 12:21:10