4.4. Getting Our Braces Off
Most of the time, the array reference we want to dereference is a simple scalar variable, such as @{$items} or ${$items}[1]. In those cases, we can drop the curly braces, unambiguously forming @$items or $$items[1].
However, we cannot drop the braces if the value within the braces is not a simple scalar variable. For example, for @{$_[1]} from that last subroutine rewrite, we can't remove the braces. That's a single element access to an array, not a scalar variable.
This rule also means that it's easy to see where the "missing" braces need to go. When we see $$items[1], a pretty noisy piece of syntax, we can tell that the curly braces must belong around the simple scalar variable, $items. Therefore, $items must be a reference to an array.
Thus, an easier-on-the-eyes version of that subroutine might be:
sub check_required_items {
my $who = shift;
my $items = shift;
my @required = qw(preserver sunscreen water_bottle jacket);
for my $item (@required) {
unless (grep $item eq $_, @$items) { # not found in list?
print "$who is missing $item.\n";
}
}
}
The only difference here is that we removed the braces around @$items.
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