Perl Hacks

Hack #34. Create a Standard Module Toolkit

Curb your addiction to explicit use statements.

Most experienced Perl programmers rely on a core set of modules and subroutines that they use in just about every application they create. For example, if you work with XML documents on a daily basis (and you certainly have our deepest sympathy there), then you probably use either XML::Parser or XML::SAX or XML::We::Built::Our::Own::Damn::Solution all the time.

If those documents contain lists of files that you need to manipulate, then you probably use File::Spec or File::Spec::Functions as well, and perhaps File::Find too. Maybe you need to verify and manipulate dates and times on those files, so you regularly pull in half a dozen of the DateTime modules.

If the application has an interactive component, you might continually need to use the prompt( ) subroutine from IO::Prompt [Hack #14]. Likewise, you might frequently make use of the efficient slurp( ) function from File::Slurp. You might also like to have Smart::Comments instantly available [Hack #54] to simplify debugging. Of course, you always specify use strict and use warnings, and probably use Carp as well.

A Mess of Modules

This adds up to a tediously long list of standard modules, most of which you need to load every time you write a new application:

#! /usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use Carp; use Smart::Comments; use XML::Parser; use File::Spec; use IO::Prompt qw( prompt ); use File::Spec::Functions; use File::Slurp qw( slurp ...