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From: martin%easby.durham.ac.uk@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu (Martin Ward)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <1990Jun1.114341.26492@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 1 Jun 90 11:43:41 GMT
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Reply-To: martin%easby.durham.ac.uk@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu
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One problem I have with leaning perl - and with persuading others of its merits
 - is the size of the documentation. I find myself constantly scanning through
to check the syntax of something. The quick reference card doesn't really
help if you are looking for useful combinations of commands. What I really
need is a "crib sheet" which gives examples of each construct as used in
actual scripts, together with a short comment saying what it does. The examples
in the manual are a good start (if collected together) especially those which
"expand" the defaults into equivalent longer constructs. eg:

          while (<>) 
               ...            # code for each line
          

is equivalent to

          unshift(@ARGV, '-') if $#ARGV < $[;
          while ($ARGV = shift) 
               open(ARGV, $ARGV);
               while (<ARGV>) 
                    ...       # code for each line
               
          

Not only does this explain while(<>), it gives a good idea of what ARGV holds
and shows where to use $ARGV, @ARGV, $#ARGV and <ARGV>.

If no one has already done something like this I am willing to collect your
favourite examples (perl cliches?) and put them together.

		Martin.

My ARPANET address is:  martin%EASBY.DUR.AC.UK@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
OR: martin%uk.ac.dur.easby@nfsnet-relay.ac.uk  UUCP:...!mcvax!ukc!easby!martin
JANET: martin@uk.ac.dur.easby    BITNET: IN%"MARTIN@EASBY.DURHAM.AC.UK"