Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!convex!news
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: fun with scoping
Message-ID: <1990Dec21.112048.28574@convex.com>
Date: 21 Dec 90 11:20:48 GMT
References: <111557@convex.convex.com> <1990Dec18.220515.19336@convex.com>
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Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
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From the keyboard of tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen):

:Now answer me these questions three:

(Before I jump on the plane to head for True Cold, here 
 are some answers...)

:    1.  Why is this (or isn't this) a recursive program?

It isn't -- the *id pass-by-name assignment in &id changes 
which &id your talking about.  [Someone was explaining
to me the difference between pass-by-name and pass-by-reference,
and perl's style seems more the former than the latter.]
If you considereed the *id assignment some kind of funky
conditional, I guess you might possibly construe it to be
a potentially recursive program, but that would be stretching
it, and anyway, in this case it doesn't do that.

:    2.  What are the associative arrays in this program, by name?

There are 2 associative arrays used to cache names and values.
These are %group and %login.  However, to the program, they 
are always known as %id, but which one it means varies between
calls, so it would be arguably correct (and certainly a lot
more fun) to say that they are %id and %id.

:    3.  What are their favorite colors?

One respondent said "Red.  No Blue!"  His message trailed off
in an "ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!" as he was cast in the Abyss, and 
I have not heard from him since.  You should always answer 
Blue to questions like this, or at the very least be decisive.

--tom
--
Tom Christiansen		tchrist@convex.com	convex!tchrist
"With a kernel dive, all things are possible, but it sure makes it hard
 to look at yourself in the mirror the next morning."  -me