Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!princeton!udel!wuarchive!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Possible problem with syscall()
Message-ID: <10543@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 27 Nov 90 17:15:57 GMT
References: <1454@tharr.UUCP>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 13

In article <1454@tharr.UUCP> gustav@tharr.UUCP (Paul Moore) writes:
: There appears to be a problem with syscall() in perl. When perl is working
: out whether an argument is a string or an integer, it decides by working out
: whether the argument looks like a number. But what about the *string* "1"?

No, it doesn't decide by whether it looks like a number, exactly.  It decides
by whether the value has ever been evaluated in a numeric context.  The
literal string "1" has never been evaluated in a numeric context, so
should be treated as a string.  If you have a string value of "1" in a
variable, but have evaluated it as a number (such as by comparing it using ==),
then it will be treated as a number.

Larry