Question

I am rummaging through 7900+ lines of perl code. I needed to change a few things and things were going quite well even though i am just 36 hours into perl. I learned the basic constructs of the language and was able to get small things done. But then suddenly I have found a function call which does not have any definition anywhere. I grep’ed several times to check for all ‘sub’. I could not find the functions definition. What am I missing ? Where is the definition of this function. I am quite sure this is a user defined function and not a library function(from its name i guessed this).
Please help me find this function’s definition.

Here is a few lines from around the function usage.

(cfg_machine_isActive($ep)) {
         staf_var_set($ep, VAR_PHASE, PHASE_PREP);
         staf_var_set($ep, VAR_PREP,  STATE_RUNNING);
      } else {
         cfg_machine_set_state($ep, STATE_FAILED);
      }
   }
   $rc = rvt_deploy_library();       #this is the function that is the problem 
   dump_states() unless ($rc != 0);

Here is the answer:

(i could not post this an answer itself cos i dont have enough reputation)

I found that the fastest way to find the definition of an imported function in perl are the following commands:

>perl.exe -d <filename>.pl

This starts the debugger.
Then; do

b <name of the function/subroutine who's definition you are looking for>

in our case that would mean entering:

b rvt_deploy_library

next press ‘c’ to jump to the mentioned function/subroutine.

This brings the debugger to the required function. Now, you can see the line no. and location of the function/subroutine on the console.

main::rvt_deploy_library(D:/CAT/rvt/lib/rvt.pm:60): 

Answer 1

There are a number of ways to declare a method in Perl. Here is an almost certainly incomplete list:

1. The standard way, eg. sub NAME { ... }
2. Using MooseX::Method::Signatures, method NAME (...) {...}
3. Assignment to a typeglob, eg. *NAME = sub {...};

In addition, if the package declares an AUTOLOAD function, then there may be no explicit definition of the method. See perlsub for more information.