NAME

Perl::Critic::Policy::Modules::RequireExplicitPackage

DESCRIPTION

Conway doesn't specifically mention this, but I've come across it in my own work. In general, the first statement of any Perl module or library should be a package statement. Otherwise, all the code that comes before the package statement is getting executed in the caller's package, and you have no idea who that is. Good encapsulation and common decency require your module to keep its innards to itself.

As for scripts, most people understand that the default package is main, but it doesn't hurt to be explicit about it either. But if you insist on omitting package main; from your scripts, you can configure this policy to overlook any file that looks like a script, which is determined by looking for a shebang line at the top of the file. To activate this behavior, add the following to your .perlcriticrc file

  [Modules::RequireExplicitPackage]
  exempt_scripts = 1

There are some valid reasons for not having a package statement at all. But make sure you understand them before assuming that you should do it too.

IMPORTANT CHANGES

This policy was formerly called "ProhibitUnpackagedCode" which sounded a bit odd. If you get lots of "Cannot load policy module" errors, then you probably need to change "ProhibitUnpackagedCode" to "RequireExplicitPackage" in your .perlcriticrc file.

AUTHOR

Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer <thaljef@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2005 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.