Perl::Critic::Policy::ValuesAndExpressions::RequireNumberSeparators(3pm)

Perl::Critic::Policy::ValuesAndExpressions::RequireNumberSeparators3pm

Write " 141_234_397.0145 " instead of " 141234397.0145 ".

Affiliation

This Policy is part of the core Perl::Critic distribution.

Overview

Long numbers can be difficult to read. To improve legibility, Perl allows numbers to be split into groups of digits separated by underscores. This policy requires number sequences of more than three digits to be separated.

    $long_int = 123456789;   #not ok
    $long_int = 123_456_789; #ok
    $long_float = 12345678.001;   #not ok
    $long_float = 12_345_678.001; #ok

Configuration

The minimum absolute value of numbers that must contain separators can be configured via the "min_value" option. The default is 10,000; thus, all numbers >= 10,000 and <= -10,000 must have separators. For example:

    [ValuesAndExpressions::RequireNumberSeparators]
    min_value = 100000    # That's one-hundred-thousand!

Notes

As it is currently written, this policy only works properly with decimal (base 10) numbers. And it is obviously biased toward Western notation. I'll try and address those issues in the future.

Releases

10 releases since Debian 5.0 (Lenny); the text changed 9 times.

  1. 5.0
  2. 6.0
  3. 7
  4. 8
  5. 9
  6. 10
  7. 11
  8. 12
  9. 13
  10. Arch

Author

Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer <[email protected]>

From perl-perl-critic 1.156-3 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.