Perl When is using AUTOLOAD OK?

Posted by Robert S. Barnes on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Robert S. Barnes
Published on 2010-03-17T08:43:25Z Indexed on 2010/03/17 8:51 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 392

Filed under:

perl

|

best-practices

|

coding-style

In "Perl Best Practices" the very first line in the section on AUTOLOAD is:

Don't use AUTOLOAD

However all the cases he describes are dealing with OO or Modules.

I have a stand alone script in which some command line switches control which versions of particular functions get defined. Now I know I could just take the conditionals and the evals and stick them naked at the top of my file before everything else, but I find it convenient and cleaner to put them in AUTOLOAD at the end of the file.

Is this bad practice / style? If you think so why, and is there a another way to do it?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about perl

Munin on Centos 6 - missing perl MODULE_COMPAT_5.8.8

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm trying to install Munin on a new VPS through yum install munin but I keep getting an error about a missing perl module: Requires: perl(:MODULE_COMPAT_5.8.8). This is the perl version currently installed: v5.10.1. I've searched all around and still haven't found a solution for this. Here's the… >>> More
Pain removing a perl rootkit

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
So, we host a geoservice webserver thing at the office. Someone apparently broke into this box (probably via ftp or ssh), and put some kind of irc-managed rootkit thing. Now I'm trying to clean the whole thing up, I found the process pid who tries to connect via irc, but i can't figure out who's… >>> More
How To Avoid a Perl script calling an Another Perl Script

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, i am calling a perl script client.pl from a main script to capture the output of client.pl in @output. is there anyway to avoid the use of these two files so i can use the output of client.pl in main.pl itself here is my code.... main.pl ======= my @output = readpipe("client.pl"); client… >>> More
Perl :how to sort dates in perl

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, How can I sort the dates in perl. my @dates = ( "02/11/2009" , "12/20/2001" , "11/21/2010" ) ; I have above dates in my array . How can I sort those dates... ? My date format is dd/mm/YYYY. >>> More
please suggest a perl book exclusively for perl programs

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I want tha name of a perl book for only PERL PROGRAMS. The reason behind is I want to improve my programming skill in perl >>> More

Related posts about best-practices

Batch Best Practices and Technical Best Practices Updated

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
The Batch Best Practices for Oracle Utilities Application Framework based products (Doc Id: 836362.1) and Technical Best Practices for Oracle Utilities Application Framework Based Products (Doc Id: 560367.1) have been updated with updated and new advice for the various versions of the Oracle… >>> More
Partial template specialization of free functions - best practices

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
As most C++ programmers should know, partial template specialization of free functions is disallowed. For example, the following is illegal C++: template <class T, int N> T mul(const T& x) { return x * N; } template <class T> T mul<T, 0>(const T& x) { return T(0); } //… >>> More
Object Oriented PHP Best Practices

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Say I have a class which represents a person, a variable within that class would be $name. Previously, In my scripts I would create an instance of the object then set the name by just using: $object->name = "x"; However, I was told this was not best practice? That I should have a function set_name()… >>> More
Good place to look for example Database Designs - Best practices

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have been given the task to design a database to store a lot of information for our company. Because the task is rather big and contains multiple modules where users should be able to do stuff, I'm worried about designing a good data model for this. I just don't want to end up with a badly designed… >>> More
Notification Email Best Practices--From Server Setup to Programming

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
All, I'm in the process now of building a SaaS tool that allows network admins to generate notification emails to the members of the end-users of our platform (among many many other things). I'm running into a bit of an "out of my expertise" wall, as I know there are a lot of variables involved… >>> More