NAME Sub::StopCalls - stop sub calls (make it a constant) SYNOPSIS my $i = 0; sub boo { return foo(); } sub foo { $i++; return Sub::StopCalls::stop(); } print "$i\n"; # 0 boo(); print "$i\n"; # 1 boo(); print "$i\n"; # 1 DESCRIPTION Basicly you can do the following in a function to mean "Hey, You! You, who called me, stop calling me, I will always return the same result": return Sub::StopCalls::stop( @result ); Still no idea how to use? Ok, here some use cases: USE CASES conditional constants Classic "if DEBUG" thing: sub debug { return Sub::StopCalls::stop() unless $ENV{'MY_APP_DEBUG'}; ... } Or logger: package My::Logger; sub warn { return Sub::StopCalls::stop() if $self->{max_level} < LEVEL_WARN; ... } accessors to singletons package MyApp; my $system; sub system { $system ||= do { ... init system object ... }; return Sub::StopCalls::stop( $system ); } hooks, triggers and callbacks sub trigger { my $self = shift; my @triggers = $self->find_triggers(caller); return Sub::StopCalls::stop() unless @triggers; ... } FUNCTIONS stop Does the job. Replaces call on upper level with whatever is passed into the function. Expected usage: return Sub::StopCalls::stop(...) if ...; Some details context Result depends on context of the call that is replaced. Nothing special about void or array context, however, in scalar context if more than one argument passed into the function then number of elements returned: # replaces with undef sub foo { return Sub::StopCalls::stop(); } # replaces with 'const' sub foo { return Sub::StopCalls::stop( 'const' ); } # replaces with number of element in @a, # but only if @a > 1, otherwise first element or undef return Sub::StopCalls::stop( @a ); arguments Arguments of the replaced call also "stopped", for example: for (1..10) { function_that_stops_calls( other(...) ); } "other(...)" called only once. Second iteration just jumps over. It's good in theory, but in some situations it can result in bugs. threads This module is not thread-safe at the moment. AUTHOR Ruslan Zakirov LICENSE Under the same terms as perl itself.