TITLE

Module Scope Control

VERSION

  Maintainer: Bryan C. Warnock <bwarnock@gtemail.net>
  Date: 5 Aug 2000
  Last Modified: 28 Sep 2000
  Mailing List: perl6-internals@perl.org
  Number: 40
  Version: 2
  Status: Frozen

CHANGES

Froze.

ABSTRACT

Modules should be able to, internally, control how they (and their members) are scoped.

DESCRIPTION

Hooks should allowed so that module writers can control global and lexical scoping of its own subs and variables.

    package MyModule;
    @globals = qw/$foo $bar %hash @array/;
    @lexicals = qw/$ork $gork @hork $./;
    BEGIN{$. = 834;}
    
    #!/usr/local/bin/perl    
    use MyModule;  # same as use MyModule; local $ork; local $.=834;
    use OtherPackage;
    
    print $MyModule::foo;  # Okay, it exists
    foo() if ($MyModule::$ork);   # Okay, it's scoped here.
    OtherPackage::bar();
    print $.;   # Prints 834.
    
    
    package OtherPackage;
    sub bar {
        print $MyModule::$bar;  # Okay, global.
        print $MyModule::$hork[0];   # Nope, not seen down here.    
        print $.;  Prints whatever it was before 834.  0?
    }

MOTIVATORS

Impatience, and a little laziness.

IMPLEMENTATION

I'm not too terribly sure I even got the terminology correct. Scoping makes my head hurt. :-(

I'll concede right now, the above is a mess, and I'd like to find a more elegant way of handling this.

The point is to allow a module to define (or override) variables only in the file where use $Module; was invoked.

I thought there was something in Perl 5 that made this easier from a core perspective, but it seemed to be overly complex for my puny little brain.

This should allow modules to behave like pragmas, in some respects.

SUMMARY OF IMPLEMENTATION

I've no real concrete ideas on this, sorry. Yes, that's a cop out. This seems like one way to handle some of the pragma issues, but I just don't know enough to make any sort of decent proposal. Apparently, neither did anyone else, or maybe this is just so stupid that it wasn't worth comments.

IMPACT

Impact on Perl 5. Mutual compatibility between Perl 5 and Perl 6, with the exception of this feature and the sematics it would add. (Obviously, other changes to the language notwithstanding.)

REFERENCES

RFC 2: Request For New Pragma: Implicit

RFC 42: Request For New Pragma: Shell

This file is part of the Perl 6 Archive