push to a referenced array

[biga]

Description:

This useful function performs 'push' into a referenced array. It creates the array if it doesn't exist.

SYNOPSIS:
my $a={};
ref_push $a->{ARRAY}, "some", "list";

But the code is a bit obfuscated... %)

sub ref_push{$_[0]?push@{+shift},@_:shift@{$_[0]=[@_]}}

[moritz]

Is there any advantage over push @{$a->{ARRAY}}, "some", "list";? I for one can't see any...

[biga]

Looks like the only benefit of this function is that you can omit surrounding @{}, which makes code cleaner. You may also add a ref check to this function for debug purposes.

[jasonk]

Hiding implentation details by writing tiny functions instead of just using references the way everybody else does rarely makes code cleaner. This is doubly true when the function you replace it with is obfuscated.

If you really need a golf function to do it though, it can be made shorter...

sub ref_push{push@{$_[0]||=[]},@_[1..$#_]}

[moritz]

... but you have to write a wrapper for every built-in list function.

To me it feels more like this function would be used by people not confident with references and autovivification, in which case I recommend reading perldata and perlreftut instead of writing wrappers.

[biga]

And if you want a "normal" variant:

sub ref_push {
    if ( !$_[0] ) {
        $_[0] = [ @_[1..$#_] ];
    } else {
        push @{$_[0]}, @_[1..$#_];
    }
}

[Tux]

Not safe enough:

sub ref_push
{
    if (ref $_[0] eq "ARRAY") {
        push @{$_[0]}, @_[1..$#_];
        }
    elsif (ref $_[0]) {
        warn "Cannot push onto non-ARRAY ref";
        }
    elsif (!defined $_[0]) {
        $_[0] = [ @_[1..$#_] ];
    else {
        warn "Cannot push: Variable already defined as something else"
+;
        }
    } # ref_push