Perl::Critic::Policy::ValuesAndExpressions::ProhibitNullStatements - disallow empty statements (stray semicolons)
This policy is part of the Perl::Critic::Pulp add-on. It prohibits empty statements, ie. bare ; semicolons. This can be a typo doubling up a semi like
Perl::Critic::Pulp
;
use Foo;; # bad
Or a stray left at the end of a control structure like
if ($foo) { print "foo\n"; return; }; # bad
An empty statement is completely harmless, so this policy is only under the "cosmetic" theme (see "POLICY THEMES" in Perl::Critic). It's surprisingly easy to leave a semi behind when chopping code around, especially when changing a statement to a loop or conditional.
A C style for (;;) { ...} loop is ok. Those semicolons are expression separators and empties are quite usual.
for (;;) { ...}
for (;;) { # ok print "infinite loop\n"; }
A semicolon at the start of a map or grep block is allowed. It's commonly used to ensure Perl parses it as a block, not an anonymous hash. (Perl decides at the point it parses the {. A ; there forces a block when it might otherwise guess wrongly. See "map" in perlfunc for more on this.)
map
grep
{
map {; $_, 123} @some_list; # ok grep {# this is a block ; # ok length $_ and $something } @some_list;
The map form is much more common than the grep, but both suffer the same ambiguity. grep doesn't normally inspire people to quite such wildly convoluted forms as map does.
allow_perl4_semihash
If true then Perl 4 style documentation comments like the following are allowed.
;# Usage: ;# require 'mypkg.pl'; ;# ...
The ; must be at the start of the line. This is fairly outdated, so it's disabled by default. If you're crunching through some old code you can enable it by adding to your .perlcriticrc file
[ValuesAndExpressions::ProhibitNullStatements] allow_perl4_semihash=1
Perl::Critic::Pulp, Perl::Critic
http://user42.tuxfamily.org/perl-critic-pulp/index.html
Copyright 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 Kevin Ryde
Perl-Critic-Pulp is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later version.
Perl-Critic-Pulp is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Perl-Critic-Pulp. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
To install Perl::Critic::Pulp, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm Perl::Critic::Pulp
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install Perl::Critic::Pulp
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.