Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!iwarp.intel.com!news
From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: undef of dbm elements?
Message-ID: <1991Jan2.194055.23359@iwarp.intel.com>
Date: 2 Jan 91 19:40:55 GMT
References: <5073@atexnet.UUCP>
Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Lines: 32
In-Reply-To: lawrence@epps.kodak.com (Scott Lawrence)

In article <5073@atexnet.UUCP>, lawrence@epps (Scott Lawrence) writes:
| 
| The perl man page says "Undef will pobably not do what you expect on ... dbm 
| array values".  
| 
| What exactly _does_ it do?
| 
| Given 
|    
|         dbmopen( %Control, "dbmfilename", 0660 );
| 
| will
| 
|         undef $Control{ "foo" };
| 
| remove the key (and associated value) "foo" from the file "dbmfilename"?

I dunno.  It might give the "undef" value to $Control{"foo"}.  But I
don't know how that would be stored on disk.

| If not, is there a way to do so?

	delete $Control{"foo"}

is the proper way.  Removes "foo" from keys(%Control), and on disk too.

ObJAPH: print "Just another Perl hacker,"
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Intel: putting the 'backward' in 'backward compatible'..."====/