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From: lisch@mentor.com (Ray Lischner)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: better idea for atexit
Message-ID: <1990Nov9.005202.18300@mentor.com>
Date: 9 Nov 90 00:52:02 GMT
Organization: engr
Lines: 32

After thinking about the problem a little, I decided I prefer
a different way of having cleanup handlers.  I suggest there be
an array, @EXIT.  The user adds subroutine names to @EXIT.
Before exiting, Perl goes through @EXIT, in order, and calls
each subroutine with no arguments.  An @EXIT handler is not
allowed to modify @EXIT, and the exit and die operations are
ignored inside an @EXIT subroutine.

The user can control the order of the cleanup handlers, usually
by appending to @EXIT with push, or inserting a handler at the
beginning of the list, with unshift.  A package can add a cleanup
handler without bothering the user of the package with such details.

For example:

package number1;
sub cleanup
{
    unlink($lock_file);
}
push(@EXIT, "number1'cleanup");

package curses;
&initscr;
sub cleanup
{
    &endwin;
}
push(@EXIT), "curses'cleanup");

-- 
Ray Lischner        UUCP: {uunet,apollo,decwrl}!mntgfx!lisch