To create grep- or map-like syntax, you need to use Perl’s prototypes, despite whatever we told you in Understand why you probably don’t need prototypes. Perl needs the special hints that prototypes to parse a block as an argument to a subroutine. First, remember the forms of grep. There’s a single expression version and a [...]

You should understand how Perl’s prototypes work, not so you’ll use them but so you won’t be tempted to use them. Although prototypes can solve some problems, they don’t solve the problems most people want. Some languages, such as C, have function prototypes. You tell your function how many arguments it has and what sort [...]

When you’re using code references heavily, you’re going to have a problem figuring out which one of them is having a problem. You define them in possibly several and far-flung parts of your program, but when it comes to using them, you don’t know which one you are using. You can’t really print its value [...]

How often have you wished that one of Perl’s modules did things slightly differently? That module mostly works for you except for some hard-coded decisions in string formats, pack specifications, or other minor point that you wish that you could configure. Or, maybe you’ve been the one to write that module. When you have to [...]

On Stackoverflow, there’s the question How can I convert a number to its multiple form in Perl?. The best answer for the particular problem is Number::Bytes::Human. Beyond, that, many of the answers take the usual if-elsif-else, such as the one suggested by Michael Cramer: sub magnitudeformat { my $val = shift; my $expstr; my $exp [...]