file RAII_Test_Banner.pm:
{
package RAII_Test_Banner;
sub new {
my $self = {};
$self->{'message'} = shift;
bless $self;
print "START: $self->{message}\n";
return $self;
}
sub DESTROY {
my $self = shift;
print "END: $self->{message}\n";
}
}
if( $::TEST ) {
{
my $t = RAII_Test_Banner("Example of RAII_Test_Banner usage");
print "something like START: Example ... should be printed above\n";
print "This is inside\n";
print "something like END: Example ... should be printed above\n";
}
}
1;
This is just a Perl version of a C++ library I wrote years ago, when I first learned about RAII (Resource Allocation is Initialization) - aka using automatic scoping to reduce the need to write code that matches start and end.
I had not realized until today that Perl had deterministic finalization - at least for variables that are not referred to by live references.
IMHO one of the biggest weaknesses of Java is lack of deterministic finalization.
