NAME
PerlX::Perform - syntactic sugar for if (defined ...) { ... }
SYNOPSIS
my $foo = function_that_might_return_undef();
perform { say $_ } wherever $foo;
my $bar = function_that_might_return_undef();
wherever $bar, perform { say $_ };
DESCRIPTION
Executes some code if a given scalar is defined. Within the code block,
the scalar is available as $_.
Note that there is no comma before "wherever" here:
my $foo = function_that_might_return_undef();
perform { say $_ } wherever $foo;
But there is one before "perform" here:
my $bar = function_that_might_return_undef();
wherever $bar, perform { say $_ };
Gory Details
The implementation is pure Perl. The closest it gets to trickery is that
the two functions defined by this package use prototypes.
perform
"perform" is a function can be called in two ways:
* with a single coderef argument
In this case, "perform" returns a blessed version of that coderef; a
so-called Manifesto object.
* with a coderef argument followed by a scalar
Generates the Manifesto object, and executes the Manifesto on the
scalar, returning the result.
Or rather, it has the effective result of doing the above. But it
inlines the logic from PerlX::Perform::Manifesto.
wherever
"wherever" is a function can be called in three ways:
* with a single scalar argument
In this case, "wherever" passes through the argument unchanged.
* with a scalar argument and a Manifesto
In this case, "wherever" executes the Manifesto with the scalar
argument.
* with a scalar argument and a coderef
In this case, "wherever" turns the coderef into a Manifesto and
executes it with the scalar argument.
This means that it's possible to do this:
my $manifesto = perform { say $_ };
wherever $foo, $manifesto;
wherever $bar, $manifesto;
And indeed "wherever" does allow a little additional syntactic sugar by
skipping over the string "perform" if it is used as the second
parameter. Thus you can write:
my $manifesto = perform { say $_ };
wherever $foo, perform => $manifesto;
wherever $bar, perform => $manifesto;
But because PerlX::Perform::Manifesto passes through any already-blessed
coderefs, this will work too:
my $manifesto = perform { say $_ };
wherever $foo, &perform($manifesto);
wherever $bar, &perform($manifesto);
Tail Calls
Both "perform" and "wherever" make extensive use of "goto" in order to
conceal their usage on the call stack.
whenever
This is available as an alias for "wherever", but is not exported by
default. You need to request it like:
use PerlX::Perform qw/perform whenever/;
BUGS
Please report any bugs to
<
http://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Queue=PerlX-Perform>.
SEE ALSO
<
http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2012/02/a-practical-use-for-macros-in
-perl.html>.
Scalar::Andand.
AUTHOR
Toby Inkster <
[email protected]>.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE
This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Toby Inkster.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.