Thanks Brandon for your answer. Yes, I agree that it makes sense that
declarations (and initializations) outside any sub should run before the
MAIN sub.
And I agree that we should probably avoid combining a MAIN sub with
non-declaring code. (And, as I said, I've never hit the case before because
I would normally not do that: to me, if I have a MAIN sub, any executable
code should be in MAIN or in subs called (directly or indirectly) from MAIN.
But then, perhaps the documentation should be clearer on that.
And many thanks for the others who answered meanwhile.
Best,
Laurent.
2018-07-19 23:48 GMT+02:00 Brandon Allbery <allber...@gmail.com>:
> Consider that "declarations" are actually executable code. They have
> compile-time meaning, but many also have runtime meaning. This is most
> obvious when it's a variable with an initializer: the initialization is at
> runtime, not compile time. Which means MAIN has to run after all such, or
> variables won't be initialized properly.
>
> Most commonly you would not combine a MAIN sub with non-declaring code.
>
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 5:32 PM Laurent Rosenfeld via perl6-users <
> perl6-users@perl.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> The documentation for the MAIN sub says that "the sub with the special
>> name MAIN is executed after all relevant phasers."
>>
>> My understanding is that MAIN automatically executes before any code
>> other than phasers happening at compile time or at the end or right after
>> the end of compilation. It seems that this is not the case. It seems that
>> my perception is wrong and that code not belonging to any sub is executed
>> before MAIN.
>>
>> For example, take this code:
>>
>> sub execute_after_main(Str $string) {
>> say "this $string after MAIN?";
>> }
>> execute_after_main("1");
>>
>> sub MAIN() {
>> say "This is MAIN so this should print first";
>> }
>> execute_after_main("2");
>>
>> This prints the following:
>>
>> this 1 after MAIN?
>> this 2 after MAIN?
>> This is MAIN so this should print first
>>
>> I was expecting the MAIN message to be printed first.
>>
>> Did I miss something? Is my understanding wrong? I'd never seen that, but
>> I guess all my scripts using MAIN had all the code in subs called from
>> MAIN. So maybe I've never hit that case.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Laurent.
>>
>
>
> --
> brandon s allbery kf8nh sine nomine
> associates
> allber...@gmail.com
> ballb...@sinenomine.net
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