Re: Curious plperl behavior

On 24/02/10 20:55, Tom Lane wrote:
> Jeff<threshar(at)threshar(dot)is-a-geek(dot)com> writes:
>> [ oracular excerpt from perlref ]
>
> So is this just a dark corner of Perl, or is plperl doing something to
> help you get confused? In particular, do we need to add anything to
> the plperl documentation? We're not trying to explain Perl to people,
> but if plperl is doing something that contributes to this, maybe it
> requires documentation.

It is documented.

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/plperl-funcs.html

Note: The use of named nested subroutines is dangerous in Perl,
especially if they refer to lexical variables in the enclosing scope.
Because a PL/Perl function is wrapped in a subroutine, any named
subroutine you create will be nested. In general, it is far safer to
create anonymous subroutines which you call via a coderef. See the
perldiag man page for more details.

There's two ways to read that:
1. "Dangerous in Perl" - well, what isn't?
2. "Dangerous in Perl" - blimey, if they think it's dangerous, it must
make lion-wrestling safe.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd