NAME

fewer - use fewer units of a countable resource

VERSION

version 0.202

SYNOPSIS

  use fewer 'top level namespaces';

DESCRIPTION

As of perl5 version 10, the long-useless pragma less became a usable tool for indicating that less something could be used. For example, the user could specify that less memory should be used, and other libraries could then choose between multiple algorithms based on that choice.

In the user's program:

  use less 'memory';

  my $result = Analyzer->analyze( $large_data_set );

In the library:

  sub analyze {
    my ($self, $data) = @_;

    my $cache  = less->of('memory') ? 'disk' : 'ram';
    my $method = "analyze_with_${cache}_cache";

    return $self->$method($data);
  }

This allowed for an explosion of highly adaptive implementions, accounting for a complex matrix of "less" interactions. Unfortunately, with the introduction of new strictures in perl5 version 18, the following code will stop working:

  use strict 'English';
  use less 'filehandles';

To clarify the matter for our foreign readership, "less" is used for things which are uncounted, while "fewer" is used for counted resources.

This library corrects this error by allowing the user to write:

  use fewer 'filehandles';

Then, both of the following conditions will be true:

  if ( less->of('filehandles') ) { ... }

  if ( fewer->of('filehandles') ) { ... }

AUTHOR

Ricardo SIGNES <rjbs@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Ricardo SIGNES.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.