Local and Global variables in perl

Question

I am having few doubts about the local/our scope in Perl. I read a lot of documentation, but I am still in confusion is there. Following are the confusions

Answer 1

Here's what I found out about variable scopes:

my declarations are pretty clear and straightforward if used inside blocks. If used in main outside any block, they are a bit different though, meaning that a my variable declared outside a block is visible even inside functions called from anywhere inside the same file as long as these functions are defined within the same file. If declared inside a block, though, they are not visible to functions even if called from the same block. All my variables seem to live on the stack. And: you cannot localize them with local.

our variables live on the heap. Even if you have a my variable by the same name, the our variable can still be accessed through ${'var'}, which looks up a variable of that name in the symbol table and dereferences it. my variables, on the other hand, have not symbol table entries.

local variables seem to me like a relic from former Perl versions. They are just re-assignments to global (our) variables with block scope and resume their former values after the block terminates. I can see no real sense in using them.

My little program below shows all this, and it shows how badly a declared() test is missing, beyond the well-known defined() test, to identify undeclared variables as such.

 #!/usr/bin/perl

 use strict;

 ### This is about variable scoping with my, our and local
 my $fsv = "file scope";                 # visible for all code in this file
 our $gsv = "global scope";              # not different from my $fsv, except in packages
 our $lsv = "global";                    # global scope, but localized in subsequent block

 {
    my $bsv = "lex scope";               # visible only inside this block, not even in subs called from here
    $gsv = "visible everywhere";
    local $lsv = "global, but localized val";

    print "This is variable \$bsv with value $bsv inside block\n";
    print "This is variable \$fsv with value $fsv inside block\n";
    print "This is variable \$lsv with value $lsv inside block\n\n";
    print_vars("calledfromblock");
 }

 print_vars("calledfromoutside");


 no strict 'vars';                       # needed if testing variable for declaredness rather than definedness
 if ( defined $bsv ) {
    print "\$bsv as defined outside braces: $bsv\n"
 } else {
    print "\$bsv not defined outside braces\n";
 }
 print "This is variable \$lsv with value $lsv outside block\n";
 # use strict 'vars';                    # no strict 'vars' effective even in sub print_vars unless switched back on

 sub print_vars
 {
    my $whence = shift;
    my $gsv = "my variable";
    no strict 'refs';                    # needed to access the global var $gsv using ${'gsv'} despite the my declaration

    if ( $whence eq "calledfromblock" ) {
       print "\t print_vars called from within the block:\n";
       ( defined $bsv )     ? print "\$bsv is $bsv inside sub\n"     : print "\$bsv not defined inside sub\n";
       ( defined $fsv )     ? print "\$fsv is $fsv inside sub\n"     : print "\$fsv not defined inside sub\n";
       ( defined ${'gsv'} ) ? print "\$gsv is ${'gsv'} inside sub\n" : print "\$gsv not defined inside sub\n";
       ( defined ${'lsv'} ) ? print "\$lsv is ${'lsv'} inside sub\n" : print "\$lsv not defined inside sub\n";
    } else {
       print "\t print_vars called from outside the block:\n";
       ( defined $bsv ) ? print "\$bsv is $bsv inside sub\n" : print "\$bsv not defined inside sub\n";
       ( defined $fsv ) ? print "\$fsv is $fsv inside sub\n" : print "\$fsv not defined inside sub\n";
       ( defined $gsv ) ? print "\$gsv is $gsv inside sub\n" : print "\$gsv not defined inside sub\n";
       ( defined $lsv ) ? print "\$lsv is $lsv inside sub\n" : print "\$lsv not defined inside sub\n";
    }
    print "\n";
 }