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From: flee@guardian.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: local($foo) = <FILE>; in sub is a no-no, I guess..
Message-ID: <F9evc031@cs.psu.edu>
Date: 21 Jul 90 21:00:48 GMT
References: <1990Jul21.013619.2319@aai.com>
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>    local($line) = <FILE>;
>didn't work as expected, but
>    local($line);
>    $line = <FILE>;

local($line) is an array, so the <FILE> gets evaluated in an array
context, which sucks in the entire file as an array of lines.  The
first line gets put in $line, and the rest of the lines disappear.

The distinction between array and scalar contexts can be nasty.
--
Felix Lee	flee@cs.psu.edu