Day 3: static types and multi subs

The third box is ready for opening this Advent. Inside…well, looks like two gifts! Inside the box are static types and multi subs.

In Perl 5, $scalar variables could contain either references or values. Specifically, the values could be anything. They could be integers, strings, numbers, dates: you name it. This offers some flexibility, but at the cost of clarity.

Perl 6 is going to change that with its static types. If you want a particular variable, you place the type name in between my and $variable-type. As an example, to set up a variable to be an Int, one can do this:

my Int $days = 24;

Other static types are as follows:

• my Str $phrase = "Hello World";
• my Num $pi = 3.141e0;
• my Rat $other_pi = 22/7;

If you still want the old behavior of the variables, you can either choose not to declare a static type or use Any instead.

This gift can easily go hand in hand with the second gift inside the box today: multi subs. What exactly are multi subs? In short, multi subs allow for the overloading of sub names. While multi subs can also do so much more, those are gifts for another day. For now, here are some subs that can be useful:

multi sub identify(Int $x) {
    return "$x is an integer.";
}

multi sub identify(Str $x) {
    return qq<"$x" is a string.>;
}

multi sub identify(Int $x, Str $y) {
    return "You have an integer $x, and a string \"$y\".";
}

multi sub identify(Str $x, Int $y) {
    return "You have a string \"$x\", and an integer $y.";
}

multi sub identify(Int $x, Int $y) {
    return "You have two integers $x and $y.";
}

multi sub identify(Str $x, Str $y) {
    return "You have two strings \"$x\" and \"$y\".";
}

say identify(42);
say identify("This rules!");
say identify(42, "This rules!");
say identify("This rules!", 42);
say identify("This rules!", "I agree!");
say identify(42, 24);

There is plenty to take advantage of with these two gifts. Try playing around with them, and keep coming back to our tree for more gifts that can use these features to their fullest extent. ☺