Perl::Critic::Policy::Variables::ProhibitPackageVars - Eliminate globals declared with our or use vars.
our
use vars
This Policy is part of the core Perl::Critic distribution.
Conway suggests avoiding package variables completely, because they expose your internals to other packages. Never use a package variable when a lexical variable will suffice. If your package needs to keep some dynamic state, consider using an object or closures to keep the state private.
This policy assumes that you're using strict vars so that naked variable declarations are not package variables by default. Thus, it complains you declare a variable with our or use vars, or if you make reference to variable with a fully-qualified package name.
strict vars
$Some::Package::foo = 1; #not ok our $foo = 1; #not ok use vars '$foo'; #not ok $foo = 1; #not allowed by 'strict' local $foo = 1; #bad taste, but technically ok. use vars '$FOO'; #ok, because it's ALL CAPS my $foo = 1; #ok
In practice though, its not really practical to prohibit all package variables. Common variables like $VERSION and @EXPORT need to be global, as do any variables that you want to Export. To work around this, the Policy overlooks any variables that are in ALL_CAPS. This forces you to put all your exported variables in ALL_CAPS too, which seems to be the usual practice anyway.
$VERSION
@EXPORT
There is room for exceptions. Some modules, like the core File::Find module, use package variables as their only interface, and others like Data::Dumper use package variables as their most common interface. These module can be specified from your .perlcriticrc file, and the policy will ignore them.
[Variables::ProhibitPackageVars] packages = File::Find Data::Dumper
This is the default setting. Using packages = will override these defaults.
packages =
You can also add packages to the defaults like so:
[Variables::ProhibitPackageVars] add_packages = My::Package
You can add package main to the list of packages, but that will only OK variables explicitly in the main package.
main
Perl::Critic::Policy::Variables::ProhibitPunctuationVars
Perl::Critic::Policy::Variables::ProhibitLocalVars
Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer <thaljef@cpan.org>
Copyright (c) 2005-2008 Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer. All rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. The full text of this license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.
To install Perl::Critic, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm Perl::Critic
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install Perl::Critic
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.