On Monday 16 December 2002 08:50 am, Jenda Krynicky wrote:
> > i know what i really should do is this:
> > sub myfunc() {
> > my @array;
> > if ( some_cond ) {
> > return undef;
> > }
> > else {
> > #populate @array
> > return [ @array ];
> > }
> > }
>
> Well ... I would use
>
> return \@array;
>
> it's a bit more Perlish and actually I expect it to be quicker.
> (Benchmarking is left to the reader)
hmm, something is going off in my head that says this is scary. @array is
local to the function (lexically scoped as you would say in perl??) and you
are returning a reference to it. well when the function goes out of scope,
isn't @array deallocated (popped off the stack) and now that reference you
returned is pointing to garbage?
or is perl's garbage collection sophisticated enough to realize the difference
between:
myfunc();
and
my $ref = myfunc();
and not deallocate @array in the second example?
also, i do understand that [ @array ] constructs and anonymous array, copies
@array into it, then returns a reference to to the new anonymous array. as
opposed to \@array which merely returns a reference to something that already
exists. but i guess my questions is...well, i asked it above...about whether
or not @array will still be in existance when the function ends...
thanks,
christopher
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