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Postings from September 1999
On Sat, 28 Aug 1999 09:30:41 MDT, Tom Christiansen wrote: >>But it's just not sensible that > >> @a = (undef, undef); # @a has two elements >> @b = @a[0,1]; # @b has two elements >> @c = (undef, undef)[0,1];# @c has *zero* elements That's not true since 5.005_57. See Hugo's patch that went in at change#3406. >>and I think this should be fixed. However, I agree that it would be a >>terrible blunder to fix this and break > >> @a = ()[0,1]; > >>Here, @a should have zero elements, not two. This would be sensible and >>leave your (getpwent)[7,0] example intact. > >Ah, I think I see what you mean now. You want these to behave differently: > > DB<1> print $count = @array = ((undef) x 3)[0,1,2] >0 > DB<2> print $count = @array = ()[0,1,2] >0 > >You'd have the first version start returning three, but leave the second >version alone. The potential for breakage here is certainly reduced >compared to what I misunderstood the original request to be, since there >are fewer cases that would change. And it's quite possible that it's >the latter case that people rely upon more than it is the former one. >Whether it's exclusively the latter case that matters, I wonder. But you >can't know what color the yolk is until you break the egg. Omlette makers can sometimes tell without breaking anything. :-) Sarathy gsar@activestate.com