Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!rbj
From: rbj@uunet.UU.NET (Root Boy Jim)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Rudeness on -l _
Message-ID: <124876@uunet.UU.NET>
Date: 7 Mar 91 22:45:24 GMT
References: <124842@uunet.UU.NET> <11714@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Organization: UUNET Communications Services, Falls Church, VA
Lines: 22

lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
?
?Oddly enough, I just worked on this yesterday after I ran into the same
?problem.  The new behavior is to allow -l _ but not -l FILEHANDLE.
?And -l _ will work correctly after lstat, but will now give a fatal error
?after a stat, so that we prevent people from making that particular
?stupid logical error before they've torn all their hair out.

Well, perhaps you could remember the filenames with the filehandles,
and either one with the statcache, so that -l would work on anything.
Nah! I'm lazy too. But it is possible.

I would rather see -l _ return undef after a stat. My concept of
undef translates roughly to "domain error". Fatal is excessive.

On the other hand, mistaking a symlink for a directory
is no fun either. Perhaps a quick death is better than a slow one.

?Larry
-- 
		[rbj@uunet 1] stty sane
		unknown mode: sane