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authorStephen McCamant <smcc@mit.edu>1998-12-13 08:06:04 -0800
committerGurusamy Sarathy <gsar@cpan.org>1999-02-08 23:40:57 +0000
commit567ce7b1052f5b50bba2cc76669272fe5ef2b2bb (patch)
treec18a93b9cf6ea5be553f1897cdaf8b807861f9e4 /pod/perlobj.pod
parent8127e0e3c3aeffc5d0bcdebd664c0fd7cd5bd9fe (diff)
downloadperl-567ce7b1052f5b50bba2cc76669272fe5ef2b2bb.tar.gz
addendum to change#2823
Message-ID: <13940.21805.470054.299@fre-76-120.reshall.berkeley.edu> Subject: [PATCH] Docs and tests for method-call syntax p4raw-link: @2823 on //depot/perl: b1524f1739a84392b9443982741b38ce39195b6c p4raw-id: //depot/perl@2844
Diffstat (limited to 'pod/perlobj.pod')
-rw-r--r--pod/perlobj.pod17
1 files changed, 15 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/pod/perlobj.pod b/pod/perlobj.pod
index 182e3ee830..a997ae0de3 100644
--- a/pod/perlobj.pod
+++ b/pod/perlobj.pod
@@ -251,7 +251,7 @@ or in one statement,
There are times when one syntax is more readable, and times when the
other syntax is more readable. The indirect object syntax is less
cluttered, but it has the same ambiguity as ordinary list operators.
-Indirect object method calls are parsed using the same rule as list
+Indirect object method calls are usually parsed using the same rule as list
operators: "If it looks like a function, it is a function". (Presuming
for the moment that you think two words in a row can look like a
function name. C++ programmers seem to think so with some regularity,
@@ -268,7 +268,20 @@ would be equivalent to
Critter->new('Bam' x 2), 1.4, 45
-which is unlikely to do what you want.
+which is unlikely to do what you want. Confusingly, however, this
+rule applies only when the indirect object is a bareword package name,
+not when it's a scalar, a BLOCK, or a C<Package::> qualified package name.
+In those cases, the arguments are parsed in the same way as an
+indirect object list operator like print, so
+
+ new Critter:: ('Bam' x 2), 1.4, 45
+
+is the same as
+
+ Critter::->new(('Bam' x 2), 1.4, 45)
+
+For more reasons why the indirect object syntax is ambiguous, see
+L<"WARNING"> below.
There are times when you wish to specify which class's method to use.
In this case, you can call your method as an ordinary subroutine