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Mastering Modern Perl: Writing Efficient and Maintainable Code

Tailcall Optimization

Explore how tailcall optimization in Perl enhances code efficiency by minimizing memory for recursive calls. Understand implementing this technique using the goto operator to write more efficient, maintainable recursive functions within control flow constructs.

We'll cover the following...

Tailcalls

A tailcall occurs when the last expression within a function is a call to another function. The outer function’s return value becomes the inner function’s return value:

Perl
sub log_and_greet_person {
    my $name = shift;
    # log the greeting into some log file...
    
    return greet_person( $name );
}
sub greet_person {
    my $name = shift;
    # ...
    say "Hi $name, and welcome!";
}
log_and_greet_person "Sam";

Tailcall optimization

Returning from greet_person() directly to the caller of log_and_greet_person() is more efficient than returning to ...