Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!maart
From: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: sh: foo=${bar-baz}; perl: ($foo = $bar) =~ s/^$/baz/;
Message-ID: <7207@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 1 Aug 90 05:04:40 GMT
References: <7195@star.cs.vu.nl> <8946@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Reply-To: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Organization: VU Dept. of Computer Science, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Lines: 31

In article <8946@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>,
	lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
)In article <7195@star.cs.vu.nl> maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes:
): Anything better?  Remember, the variables could have looooooooong names
): you rather wouldn't retype.
)
)I fail to see the name you had to retype in
)
)	($foo = $bar) =~ s/^$/baz/;

Precisely the point!  I wanted to circumvent some obvious approach like:

	length($foo = $bar) || ($foo = 'baz');

...taking which one has to retype `$foo'.

)However, if, as is often the case, you know $bar isn't going to have the
)value "0", it's shorter and much more intuitive to say
)
)	$foo = $bar || "baz";
)
)as in
)
)	$home = $ENV{'HOME'} || $ENV{'LOGDIR'} || (getpwuid($<))[7] || die;

Thanks for this suggestion.  In general, however, one seems to be stuck
to the `obvious solution'.  (Thanks for pointing out the problem with my
initial hack, Randal.)
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