The jury is still debating whether this is a feature or a bug. All I can offer is an explanation.

my has compile-time *and* run-time effects. At compile time, the compiler knows about the variable, etc. At run-time, values are set, my $x; makes that $x becomes undef. So far, so good.

However, for efficiency reasons, if Perl exits a block, it will actually *not* delete any variables lexical to the block. You cannot refer to them anymore (the compiler takes care of that), but the data structure build for it remains. Perl does this because it is likely that you reenter a block and if the structure remains, Perl can save time rebuilding it. However, with my $x if undef, no run-time effect on $x happens when reentering the block. (The first time the block is entered, the datastructure gets build when $x is used). And since the structure doesn't get rebuild, the value doesn't get reset either. So, you have created a static variable....

-- Abigail

In reply to Re: Unusual Closure Behaviour by Abigail
in thread Unusual Closure Behaviour by tachyon

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