Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Counting characters with unix utilities
Message-ID: <9682@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 26 Sep 90 18:21:45 GMT
References: <1990Sep26.125033.19669@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 36

In article <1990Sep26.125033.19669@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU> worley@compass.com writes:
: 
:    From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
: 
:    |    perl -ne '$c += tr/A/A/; print $c if eof;' file
:    | 
:    | Doesn't this fail if the file is empty?
: 
:    Ooops.  I'll be out painting fence-posts for a while, sorry. :-)
: 
: It seems like it would be useful to be able to prescribe prolog and
: epilog code for -n (and -p) loops.  AWK does this with BEGIN and END.
: Then it would be simple:
: 
: 	perl -ne '$c += tr/A/A/' -xxx 'print $c' file

It hardly seems worth it to add a new switch when you can say

	perl -e 'while(<>){$c += tr/A/A/;}print $c' file

or

	perl -ne '$c += tr/A/A/; print $c if eof()' file

or

	perl -e 'undef $/; $_ = <>; print tr/A/A/' file

or even

	perl -e '$c += tr/A/A/ while <>; print $c' file

Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate
to make 10 ways to do something.  :-)

Larry