2. Manual Importing and Exporting

Provide a synonym for a function

• Your module provides

        package MyModule;

        sub no_elements { ... }

• Later you realize that num_elements would have been clearer

        package MyModule;

        sub num_elements { ... }
        BEGIN { *no_elements = \&num_elements; }

• Now both names will do exactly the same thing

• You can change the documentation to say

        num_elements    Returns the number of pending items in the
                        flapdoodle queue

        no_elements     Obsolete synonym for 'num_elements'

• Similarly

        sub unimplemented { ... }
        for (qw(FIRSTKEY NEXTKEY CLEAR)) {
          *$_ = \&unimplemented;
        }

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Copyright © 2002 M-J. Dominus