Path: utzoo!dciem!array!colin
From: colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Is ; a simple statement?
Message-ID: <120@array.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jul 90 06:42:18 GMT
Organization: Array Systems Computing, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Lines: 21

After getting a couple of RTFM pieces of mail, I realise I should
have been more clear.  I asked why Perl rejects
while (EXPR);
I am *not* claiming this is a valid from of the compound statement
while (EXPR) BLOCK
but of the modified simple statement:
EXPR while (EXPR);
I'm assuming that
;
is of the form
EXPR;

It's accepted by Perl, and doesn't seem to be a declaration or a
compound statement, and there is no other type of statement listed
in the man page, as far as I can see, so I assume it's a simple
statement, and the null string is a valid expression.

Gicen this reasoning, I've found a bug in Perl, but it has a lot of
assumptions, so I'm asking the experts.
--
	-Colin`