Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!stat!sun13!sun8.scri.fsu.edu!nall
From: nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Misuse? Or a bug?
Message-ID: <163@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 90 13:51:52 GMT
Sender: news@sun13.scri.fsu.edu
Reply-To: nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Lines: 26

The following script:

	#!/bin/perl
	if ($_ = <>) { print ; }

will allow one to enter a line of data, and then print it out.
Which is what it is supposed to do.

However, the following script:
	
	#!/bin/perl
	if (<>) { print ; }

will allow one to enter a line of data, and then exits without
ever printing it out.  (This is, of course, a simplified example).

I thought that $_ was the default, so the two should be equivalent.
Am I doing something wrong?  Or is it a bug?  (Obviously, it is
easy to workaround, so I'm more concerned with whether or not I am
misunderstanding the manual than anything else).

--
John W. Nall		| Supercomputation Computations Research Institute
nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu  | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306
"They said it couldn't be done/they said nobody could do it/
But he tried the thing that couldn't be done!/He tried - and he couldn't do it"