Perl::Critic::Policy::ValuesAndExpressions::ProhibitNullStatements(3)

NAME
Perl::Critic::Policy::ValuesAndExpressions::ProhibitNullStatements - disallow empty statements (stray semicolons)

DESCRIPTION
This policy is part of the "Perl::Critic::Pulp" add-on. It prohibits empty statements, ie. bare ";" semicolons. This can be a typo doubling up a semi like

    use Foo;;    # bad

Or a stray left at the end of a control structure like

    if ($foo) {
      print "foo\n";
      return;
    };           # bad

An empty statement is harmless, so this policy is under the "cosmetic" theme (see "POLICY THEMES" in Perl::Critic) and medium severity. It's surprisingly easy to leave a semi behind when chopping code around, especially when changing a statement to a loop or conditional.

  Allowed forms
A C style "for (;;) { ...}" loop is ok. Those semicolons are expression separators and empties there are quite usual.

    for (;;) {   # ok
      print "infinite loop\n";
    }

A semicolon at the start of a "map" or "grep" block is allowed. It's commonly used to ensure Perl parses it as a block, not an anonymous hash. (Perl decides at the point it parses the "{". A ";" there forces a block when it might otherwise guess wrongly. See "map" in perlfunc for more on this.)

    map {; $_, 123} @some_list;      # ok

    grep {# this is a block
          ;                          # ok
          length $_ and $something } @some_list;

The "map" form is much more common than the "grep", but both suffer the same ambiguity. "grep" doesn't normally inspire people to quite such convoluted forms as "map" does.

  Try/Catch Blocks
The "Try", "TryCatch" and "Syntax::Feature::Try" modules all add new "try" block statement forms. These statements don't require a terminating semicolon (the same as an "if" doesn't require one). Any semicolon there is reckoned as a null statement.

    use TryCatch;
    sub foo {
      try { attempt_something() }
      catch { error_recovery()  };   # bad
    }

This doesn't apply to other try modules such as "Try::Tiny" and friends. They're implemented as ordinary function calls (with prototypes), so a terminating semicolon is normal for them.

    use Try::Tiny;
    sub foo {
      try { attempt_something() }
      catch { error_recovery()  };   # ok
    }

CONFIGURATION

"allow_perl4_semihash" (boolean, default false)
    If true then Perl 4 style documentation comments like the following are allowed.

        ;# Usage:
        ;#      require 'mypkg.pl';
        ;#      ...

    The ";" must be at the start of the line. This is fairly outdated, so it's disabled by default. If you're crunching through some old code you can enable it by adding to your .perlcriticrc file

        [ValuesAndExpressions::ProhibitNullStatements]
        allow_perl4_semihash=1

SEE ALSO
Perl::Critic::Pulp, Perl::Critic, Perl::Critic::Policy::CodeLayout::RequireFinalSemicolon

HOME PAGE
http://user42.tuxfamily.org/perl-critic-pulp/index.html

COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021 Kevin Ryde

Perl-Critic-Pulp is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later version.

Perl-Critic-Pulp is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Perl-Critic-Pulp. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.