Remove the code that handles assignment to state variables

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@31049

3 files changed, 5 insertions, 30 deletions

diff --git a/pod/perldiag.pod b/pod/perldiag.pod
index 6285c71fc4..1ba0c46fd0 100644
--- a/pod/perldiag.pod
+++ b/pod/perldiag.pod
@@ -3902,16 +3902,6 @@ L<perlfunc/splice>.
 iterate more times than there are characters of input, which is what
 happened.) See L<perlfunc/split>.
 
-=item State variable %s will be reinitialized
-
-(W misc) You're declaring a C<state> variable inside a list. The list
-assignment will be treated by perl as a regular assignment, which means
-that the C<state> variable will be reinitialized each time the statement
-is run. The solution to have it initialized only once is to write the
-assignment on its own line, as in:
-
-    state $var = 42;
-
 =item Statement unlikely to be reached
 
 (W exec) You did an exec() with some statement after it other than a
diff --git a/pod/perlfunc.pod b/pod/perlfunc.pod
index 599017b3f5..d7d9044e7b 100644
--- a/pod/perlfunc.pod
+++ b/pod/perlfunc.pod
@@ -6011,7 +6011,7 @@ X<state>
 =item state TYPE EXPR : ATTRS
 
 C<state> declares a lexically scoped variable, just like C<my> does.
-However, those variables will be initialized only once, contrary to
+However, those variables will never be reinitialized, contrary to
 lexical variables that are reinitialized each time their enclosing block
 is entered.
 
diff --git a/pod/perlsub.pod b/pod/perlsub.pod
index 5ecd346a14..a04dfc95c4 100644
--- a/pod/perlsub.pod
+++ b/pod/perlsub.pod
@@ -453,26 +453,11 @@ each time the gimme_another() function is called:
 Also, since C<$x> is lexical, it can't be reached or modified by any Perl
 code outside.
 
-You can initialize state variables, and the assigment will be executed
-only once:
+Be aware that assignment to C<state> variables (as in C<state $x = 42>)
+are executed every time; to initialize (or re-initialize) an undefined
+state scalar, you can use, for example, the defined-or assignment :
 
-    sub starts_from_42 { state $x = 42; return ++$x }
-
-You can also, as a syntactic shortcut, initialize more than one if they're
-all declared within the same state() clause:
-
-    state ($a, $b, $c) = ( 'one', 'two', 'three' );
-
-However, be warned that state variables declared as part of a list will
-get assigned each time the statement will be executed, since it will be
-considered as a regular list assigment, not one to be executed only once:
-
-    (state $x, my $y) = (1, 2); # $x gets reinitialized every time !
-
-B<Caveat>: the code at the right side of the assignment to a state
-variable will be executed every time; only the assignment is disabled. So,
-avoid code that has side-effects, or that is slow to execute. This might
-be optimized out in a future version of Perl.
+    state $x //= initial_value();
 
 =head3 Persistent variables with closures