overloading(3perl)

💖 overloading 💖

okay bestie, welcome to overloading — that's the perl pragma that lets you lexically control overloading ✨ (yes, the manual page for it lives in the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, and you're literally reading it rn 🫶)

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

{
    no overloading;
    my $str = "$object"; # doesn't call stringification overload
}

# it's lexical, so this stringifies:
warn "$object";

# it can be enabled per op
no overloading qw("");
warn "$object";

# and also reenabled
use overloading;

like. look at that. chef's kiss 👑

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so the whole vibe of this pragma is: it lets you lexically disable or enable overloading. that's it. that's the tweet. 🦋

• no overloading — disables overloading entirely in the current lexical scope 💅
• no overloading @ops — disables only specific overloads in the current lexical scope 👀 (just the ops you name, bestie, nothing more)
• use overloading — reenables overloading in the current lexical scope 🌈
• use overloading @ops — reenables overloading only for specific ops in the current lexical scope ⭐

ngl the entire point is that it's lexical — so it only applies to the scope you're in, and the moment you leave that block everything goes back to normal. no cap. 🎀

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and that's the whole page fr fr 😭 short and iconic, just like you. slay 💜

vers: perl v5.44.0 · dated: 2026-10-17 · page: overloading(3perl) — mwah, go forth and overload responsibly 🧚🍓