How do I include functions from another file in my Perl script?

Question

This seems like a really simple question but somehow my Google-Fu failed me.

What\'s the syntax for including functions from other files in Perl? I\'m looking for s

Answer 1

What are you looking for is 'require file.pl', but what you should be looking at is 'use module'.

Answer 2

The above answers all ignored the client part: How to import the module.

See the accepted answer here: How do I use a Perl module from a relative location?

Without the trick in this answer, you'll have plenty of trouble trying to get the module path right when you use $mymodule;

Answer 3

I believe you are looking for the require or use keywords.

Answer 4

I know the question specifically says "functions", but I get this post high up in search when I look for "perl include", and often times (like now) I want to include variables (in a simple way, without having to think about modules). And so I hope it's OK to post my example here (see also: Perl require and variables; in brief: use require, and make sure both "includer" and "includee" files declare the variable as our):

$ perl --version

This is perl, v5.10.1 (*) built for i686-linux-gnu-thread-multi ...

$ cat inc.pl
use warnings;
use strict;

our $xxx = "Testing";

1;

$ cat testA.pl 
use warnings;
use strict;

require "inc.pl";
our $xxx;

print "1-$xxx-\n";
print "Done\n";

$ perl testA.pl 
1-Testing-
Done


$ cat testB.pl 
use warnings;
use strict;

our $xxx;
print "1-$xxx-\n";

$xxx="Z";
print "2-$xxx-\n";

require "inc.pl";

print "3-$xxx-\n";
print "Done\n";

$ perl testB.pl 
Use of uninitialized value $xxx in concatenation (.) or string at testB.pl line 5.
1--
2-Z-
3-Testing-
Done

Answer 5

Also, do 'file.pl'; will work, but modules are the better solution.

Answer 6

Perl require will do the job. You will need to ensure that any 'require'd files return truth by adding

1;

at the end of the file.

Here's a tiny sample:

$ cat m1.pl 
use strict;
sub x { warn "aard"; }
1;

$ cat m2.pl 
use strict;
require "m1.pl";
x();

$ perl m2.pl 
aard at m1.pl line 2.

But migrate to modules as soon as you can.

EDIT

A few benefits of migrating code from scripts to modules:

• Without packages, everything occupies a single namespace, so you may hit a situation where two functions from separate files want the same name.
• A package allows you to expose some functions, but hide others. With no packages, all functions are visible.
• Files included with require are only loaded at run time, whereas packages loaded with use are subject to earlier compile-time checks.