Perl Style: Defensive Programming

Jan 1, 1998 by Tom Christiansen

• use strict
• #!/usr/bin/perl -w
• Check all syscall return values, printing $!
• Watch for external program failures in $?
• Check $@ after eval"" or s///ee.
• Parameter asserts
• #!/usr/bin/perl -T
• Always have an else after a chain of elsifs
• Put commas at the end of lists to so your program won’t break if someone inserts another item at the end of the list.

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Copyright © 1998, Tom Christiansen All rights reserved.