How to create a seperate helper function in Perl?

Tolgar
Tolgar used Ask the Experts™
on
Hi,
I have a few Perl packages. In these packages, there is a piece of code that I repeat every time. Therefore, I would like to create a separate function (a separate function in a helperFunctions directory) and when I need that piece of code, I will call this function with certain inputs and return the output to the caller.

Example:
package xxx::yyy;
use strict;
use warnings;

sub yyy{

some code-1

some repetitve code-1
some repetitve code-2
some repetitve code-3
some repetitve code-4
some repetitve code-5

some code-2

}
1;

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I want this code to be like this:
package xxx::yyy;
use strict;
use warnings;

sub yyy{

some code-1

call helperFunction lineNumbers.pm here and return the output

some code-2

}
1;

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How can I do it?

Can you send me a basic hello world example?

the directory structure is like this:

/dir1/yyy.pm

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The helperFunctions dir will be like this:

/dir1/helperFunctions/lineNumbers.pm

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Commented:
you can try this:

#Add this to your package:
require '/dir1/helperFunctions/lineNumbers.pm';

#Call the subroutine as normal:
&helperFunction;

#Then in lineNumbers.pm add
sub helperFunction{
#Code here
}

1; #don't forget to have this!!!

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Tolgar

Author

Commented:
@whosbetterthanme: Is "require" the only way to do this?
whosbetterthanme

Commented:
I believe you can use "use" also:
http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/use.html
wilcoxon

Commented:
Using "use" is more standard.  Generally, you'll write a module something like:
package MyFunctions;
require Exporter;
use base qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT = qw(helperFunction1);
sub helperFunction1 {
...
}
1;

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And then your program will have something like:
use lib 'some-dir'; # only needed if MyFunctions is not in somewhere pointed to by @INC
use MyFunctions;
helperFunction1();

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