Patch for "The First Mystery" section of the mod_perl porting guide as
per my conversation with Stas at YAPC::Europe::2003.
Takes out the suggestion of creating a Perl4-style library in the same
directory as a means to port CGI scripts.
Replaces it with something simpler and more reliable.
I've also changed "If you put your code into a library or module..."
to "If you put all your code into modules..." because if you put your
code into a Perl4-style library and then require it in more than one
registry script terrible things happen. I don't think this is the
place to explain this so I think the guide should just say "modules"
and leave it at that.
Probably the library problem should be explained elsewhere in the
guide.
Onece this is sorted out, a patch for perl_reference.pod will follow.
--- porting.pod.orig Thu Aug 14 18:02:27 2003
+++ porting.pod Fri Aug 15 13:37:33 2003
@@ -228,44 +228,42 @@
It's important to understand that the I<inner subroutine> effect
happens only with code that C<Apache::Registry> wraps with a
-declaration of the C<handler> subroutine. If you put your code into a
-library or module, which the main script require()'s or use()'s, this
-effect doesn't occur.
+declaration of the C<handler> subroutine. If you put all your code
+into modules, which the main script use()s, this effect doesn't occur.
-For example if we move the code from the script into the subroutine
-I<run>, place the subroutines into the I<mylib.pl> file, save it in
-the same directory as the script itself and require() it, there will
-be no problem at all. (Don't forget the C<1;> at the end of the
-library or the require() might fail.)
+Do not use simple Perl4-style libraries located in the same directory
+as the script. This technique was recommended by a previous version
+of this guide but is seriously flawed. Subroutines in such libraries
+will only be available to the first script in any given interpreter
+thread to require() a library of any given name. This can lead to
+strange sporadic failures. It also won't work at all under mod_perl2
+because the current working directory is not the directory containing
+the script.
+
+The easiest and the fastest way to solve the nested subroutines
+problem is to change C<my> to C<local> C<our> for all variables for
+which you get the warning. The C<handler> subroutines are never
+called re-entrantly and each resides in a package to itself. Most of
+the usual disadvantates of package scoped variables are, therefore,
+not a concern.
- mylib.pl:
- ---------
- my $counter;
- sub run{
- print "Content-type: text/plain\r\n\r\n";
- $counter = 0;
- for (1..5) {
- increment_counter();
- }
+ counter.pl:
+ ----------
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -w
+ use strict;
+
+ print "Content-type: text/plain\r\n\r\n";
+
+ local our $counter = 0;
+
+ for (1..5) {
+ increment_counter();
}
+
sub increment_counter{
$counter++;
print "Counter is equal to $counter !\r\n";
}
- 1;
-
- counter.pl:
- ----------
- use strict;
- require "./mylib.pl";
- run();
-
-This solution provides the easiest and the fastest way to solve the
-nested subroutines problem, since all you have to do is to move the
-code into a separate file, by first wrapping the initial code into
-some function that you later will call from the script and keeping the
-lexically scoped variables that could cause the problem out of this
-function.
But as a general rule of thumb, unless the script is very short, I
tend to write all the code in external libraries, and to have only a
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per my conversation with Stas at YAPC::Europe::2003.
Takes out the suggestion of creating a Perl4-style library in the same
directory as a means to port CGI scripts.
Replaces it with something simpler and more reliable.
I've also changed "If you put your code into a library or module..."
to "If you put all your code into modules..." because if you put your
code into a Perl4-style library and then require it in more than one
registry script terrible things happen. I don't think this is the
place to explain this so I think the guide should just say "modules"
and leave it at that.
Probably the library problem should be explained elsewhere in the
guide.
Onece this is sorted out, a patch for perl_reference.pod will follow.
--- porting.pod.orig Thu Aug 14 18:02:27 2003
+++ porting.pod Fri Aug 15 13:37:33 2003
@@ -228,44 +228,42 @@
It's important to understand that the I<inner subroutine> effect
happens only with code that C<Apache::Registry> wraps with a
-declaration of the C<handler> subroutine. If you put your code into a
-library or module, which the main script require()'s or use()'s, this
-effect doesn't occur.
+declaration of the C<handler> subroutine. If you put all your code
+into modules, which the main script use()s, this effect doesn't occur.
-For example if we move the code from the script into the subroutine
-I<run>, place the subroutines into the I<mylib.pl> file, save it in
-the same directory as the script itself and require() it, there will
-be no problem at all. (Don't forget the C<1;> at the end of the
-library or the require() might fail.)
+Do not use simple Perl4-style libraries located in the same directory
+as the script. This technique was recommended by a previous version
+of this guide but is seriously flawed. Subroutines in such libraries
+will only be available to the first script in any given interpreter
+thread to require() a library of any given name. This can lead to
+strange sporadic failures. It also won't work at all under mod_perl2
+because the current working directory is not the directory containing
+the script.
+
+The easiest and the fastest way to solve the nested subroutines
+problem is to change C<my> to C<local> C<our> for all variables for
+which you get the warning. The C<handler> subroutines are never
+called re-entrantly and each resides in a package to itself. Most of
+the usual disadvantates of package scoped variables are, therefore,
+not a concern.
- mylib.pl:
- ---------
- my $counter;
- sub run{
- print "Content-type: text/plain\r\n\r\n";
- $counter = 0;
- for (1..5) {
- increment_counter();
- }
+ counter.pl:
+ ----------
+ #!/usr/bin/perl -w
+ use strict;
+
+ print "Content-type: text/plain\r\n\r\n";
+
+ local our $counter = 0;
+
+ for (1..5) {
+ increment_counter();
}
+
sub increment_counter{
$counter++;
print "Counter is equal to $counter !\r\n";
}
- 1;
-
- counter.pl:
- ----------
- use strict;
- require "./mylib.pl";
- run();
-
-This solution provides the easiest and the fastest way to solve the
-nested subroutines problem, since all you have to do is to move the
-code into a separate file, by first wrapping the initial code into
-some function that you later will call from the script and keeping the
-lexically scoped variables that could cause the problem out of this
-function.
But as a general rule of thumb, unless the script is very short, I
tend to write all the code in external libraries, and to have only a
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