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From: lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: package NAME;
Message-ID: <1991Jun20.025018.21725@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: 20 Jun 91 02:50:18 GMT
References: <7329@vela.acs.oakland.edu>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 19

In article <7329@vela.acs.oakland.edu> schemers@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Roland Schemers III) writes:
: Just wondering why you have to have a static name for a package instead
: of having it be an expression. ie:
: 
: package foo;
: 
: instead of 
: 
: $bar="foo";
: package $bar;

Because variable names are looked up in the symbol table at compile time,
not at run time.  Having a parameterized package name implies a parameterized
symbol table, and I don't want to think about what it would take to make
that work.  It would make it easier to write generic packages, but you'd
take a run-time hit.  For now, it's best to use other means of
parameterization, such as *foo and eval.

Larry