proper usage of CGI.pm

[WintersMystic]

ok, some people tell me that this is the proper way

use strict;

use CGI;

use CGI qwstandard);

$q = new CGI;

and others tell me i dont need

use CGI;

when using

use CGI qwstandard);

which is right??

 

[missbarbell]

Realistically you only need one or the other. If you don't specify a tag, such as ":standard", then all functions will get loaded with the package. However, when you specify a distinct set of functions using a tag, then only those functions get loaded.

The reasoning behind this is to save the the interpreter form needlessly compiling functions that aren't required.

If you have a high profile site, then it will make a difference as it will mean each process is grabbing memory it doesn't need.

HTH,
barbie.
Leader of Birmingham Perl Mongers

http://birmingham.pm.org

 

[Coderifous]

Here is a good link to check out:

http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/lib/CGI.html#USING-THE-FUNCTION-ORIENTED-INTERFACE

From what I have experienced, calling the CGI.pm with just:

use CGI;

will not import any of it's functions into your MAIN namespace. SO if you said:

print header();

And this is gonna really hurt... if you are using the object oriented interface ( $q = new CGI; <--this was in your post) then you don't need to worry about importing the functions at all! So for you, using the object oriented style, you could just say: use CGI;
and you would be fine.

Hope this helps,

--Jim

you would get an error. However:

print CGI::header();

would work as desired. If you check out the link, above, it will describe the different &quot;sets&quot; of functions you can import into your MAIN namespace in order to balance efficient execution with elegant scripting.