Acme-ComeFrom
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NAME
Acme::ComeFrom - Parallel Goto-in-reverse
VERSION
This document describes version 0.10 of Acme::ComeFrom, released October
14, 2007.
SYNOPSIS
use Acme::ComeFrom;
sub func { print "@_" }; func("Start\n");
print "This won't happen\n";
comefrom &func; print "Branch 1\n"; exit;
comefrom &func; print "Branch 2\n";
label: print "This won't happen either\n";
comefrom label; print "Branch 2.1\n"; exit;
comefrom label; print "Branch 2.2\n";
EXPR0: print "To be\n"; exit;
comefrom "EXPR".int(rand(2)); print "Not to be\n";
DESCRIPTION
INTERCAL programmers have for a long time monopolized the enormously
powerful construct "COME FROM", both as a flow-control replacement to
"goto", and as a simple way to mark parallel execution branches in the
multi-thread variant.
But now, with Acme::ComeFrom, we Perl hackers can finally be on par with
them in terms of wackiness, if not in obfuscation.
Just like "goto", "comefrom" comes in three different flavors:
comefrom LABEL
The "comefrom-LABEL" form finds the statement labeled with "LABEL"
and jumps to the "comefrom" each time just *before* that statement's
execution. The "comefrom" may not be inside any construct that
requires initialization, such as a subroutine or a "foreach" loop,
unless the targeting "LABEL" is also in the same construct.
comefrom EXPR
The "comefrom-EXPR" form expects a label name, whose scope will be
resolved dynamically. This allows for computed "comefrom"s by
checking the "EXPR" before every label (a.k.a. watchpoints), so you
can write:
# $i below evaluates in the LABEL's scope
comefrom ("FOO", "BAR", "GLARCH")[$i];
Starting from version 0.05, the value of EXPR is evaluated each
time, instead of the old *frozen at the first check* behaviour. If
this breaks your code -- as if there's any code based on comefrom --
You may retain the original behaviour by assigning a true value to
$Acme::ComeFrom::CacheEXPR.
comefrom &NAME
The "comefrom-&NAME" form is quite different from the other forms of
"comefrom". In fact, it isn't a comefrom in the normal sense at all,
and doesn't have the stigma associated with other "comefrom"s.
Instead, it installs a post-processing handler for the subroutine,
and a jump would be made just *after* the subroutine's execution.
If two or more "comefrom" were applied to the same LABEL, EXPR or NAME,
they will be executed simultaneously via "fork()". The forking are
ordered by their occurrances, with the parent process receiving the last
one.
BUGS
This module does not really parse perl; it guesses label names quite
accurately, but the regex matching the "comefrom" itself could catch
many false-positives. Perhaps some day a brave soul somewhere will
volunteer to patch this module to use PPI instead...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To the INTERCAL language, for its endless inspiration.
As its manual states: "The earliest known description of the COME FROM
statement in the computing literature is in [R. L. Clark, "A linguistic
contribution to GOTO-less programming," Commun. ACM 27 (1984), pp.
349-350], part of the famous April Fools issue of CACM. The subsequent
rush by language designers to include the statement in their languages
was underwhelming, one might even say nonexistent. It was therefore
decided that COME FROM would be an appropriate addition to C-INTERCAL."
To Maestro Damian Conway, the source of all magic bits in Hook::LexWrap
and Filter::Simple, on which this module is based.
( run in 0.886 second using v1.01-cache-2.11-cpan-d8267643d1d )