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Re: Pre-RFC: builtin:: functions for detecting numbers vs strings

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From:
demerphq
Date:
March 12, 2022 14:48
Subject:
Re: Pre-RFC: builtin:: functions for detecting numbers vs strings
Message ID:
CANgJU+UrEDaPbvx2ckaHWyia93pg0trzoCMBZwr9uvZW+kNGww@mail.gmail.com
On Sat, 12 Mar 2022 at 15:10, Glenn Golden <gdg@zplane.com> wrote:
>
> demerphq <demerphq@gmail.com> [2022-03-12 14:23:12 +0800]:
> > On Sat, 12 Mar 2022, 05:19 William Lindley, <wlindley@wlindley.com> wrote:
> >
> > > In all this discussion, what happens when reading a file
> >
> >
> > Any data that was read from a file would be a string unless you did
> > something to tell perl otherwise.
> >
> > containing the
> > > line:
> > >
> > > 01730
> > >
> > > which is the postal code for my hometown.  This "looks like" a number
> >
> >
> > I don't believe it does actually. The leading 0 means that
> > looks_like_number() should reject it.
> >
>
> Could you expand a bit on what you meant above by "should reject"?
>
> I didn't understand if you meant it in the sense of "should be rejected
> by looks_like_number() as implemented in the upcoming Perl release", or
> if you meant more generally that rejection "should be the current _and_
> future behavior".
>
> I'm asking because my experience with looks_like_number() has been (for
> many years, up to and including 5.34) based on the attached script and
> set of test case strings, several of which have leading zeros.  TTBOMR,
> the leading-zeros cases in the first group have always been classified
> as "a number" by Scalar::Util::looks_like_number().

I apologize, I wrote that on my phone when I didn't have my laptop
handy and I didn't actually check Scalar::Util::looks_like_number() to
verify what I said, hence the "I believe" and "should". Obviously I
was wrong, my bad. I think I got muddled with a different function
that is used to verify if 0+$val eq "$val", which is necessary for
validating for round trip safe serialization. Sorry about that.

And when I say reject i mean would return false, as opposed to accept
where the return would be true.

> I added a few more cases just now for a little better test coverage,
> and all seem to still accord with my historical (and present) expectations
> as a Certified Perl Moron.  Am I making some mistake in the way that the
> test script makes its determination?
>
> Are any of these test cases expected to change in the upcoming release?

I am not aware of any plans to change that. If its accepted now then
its hard to imagine that someone would change it.

Cheers,
Yves
-- 
perl -Mre=debug -e "/just|another|perl|hacker/"

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