How can I get a working Data::Alias in Perl 5.12?

Question

I like Data::Alias. It seems to be broken in 5.12. Can it be fixed? Will it be fixed soon? Is there any nice alternative?

Answer 1

Any version of Data::Alias built before Version 1.08 (Released October 22nd, 2010 BST) won't work with Perl 5.12 as Data::Alias prior to 1.08 is broken in Perl 5.12. Upgrade to the latest version (1.08 or newer) and it should work!

As an interesting side note, it seems like being able to do aliases may be coming to Perl as a language feature in the future, with the cleanup of := no longer meaning an empty attribute list. Look forward to it! :)

Answer 2

The module hasn't been updated since 2007 but you can always send a message to the author (Matthijs van Duin: xmath@cpan.org) or file a bug report as Robert mentioned in his answer.

Here are some alternatives:

• As far as additional CPAN modules for aliasing that work in 5.12+:

  • Variable::Alias - clean syntax
  • Tie::Alias - a pure perl solution
  • Lexical::Alias - clean syntax
  • Devel::LexAlias - a bit lower level

  And searching for 'alias' on CPAN turns up a few more, none seem to provide the "do everything with aliases in this statement" feature of Data::Alias though. So until Data::Alias is fixed, you can use one of the above, or the following pure Perl methods:

• Perl has built in support for aliasing any variable to variables that exist in the symbol table. This is done as follows:

  my $x = 1;
  our $y; # declare $y in the symbol table for the current package
  {
      local *y = \$x;  # make $y an alias of $x in the current scope
      $y++;
  }
  print $x;  # prints 2
  

  But as always, be aware of what dynamic scope / local actually does before using it.

• A lexical scalar can be used as an alias within the scope of a for loop:

  my $x = 1;
  for my $y ($x) {
      $y++;
  }
  print $x;  # prints 2
  

  this type of lexical alias can even be passed out of the loop in a closure if needed

• You can create array aliases using Perl's aliasing magic for subroutine argument lists:

  my $x = 1;
  my $alias = sub{\@_}->($x); # return a reference to its argument list, 
                              # which maintains its aliases
  $$alias[0]++;
  print $x;     # prints 2
  

  but that doesn't really give you any more functionality than references, just with a different syntax.

• And an example using Perl's references:

  my $x = 1;   
  my $y = \$x;  # take a reference to $x
  $$y++;        # dereference $y
  print $x;     # prints 2 
  

Answer 3

I just found another potential option: Scalar::Alias, which seems to work in Perl 5.12. Obviously, it only aliases scalars, but it doesn't require a fat comma in place of an equals sign.