Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rpi!bu.edu!nntp-read!composer
From: composer@chem.bu.edu (Jeff Kellem)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: print <FILE>;
Message-ID: <COMPOSER.91Apr7162604@chem.bu.edu>
Date: 7 Apr 91 20:26:04 GMT
References: <1268@sicsun.epfl.ch>
Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu
Reply-To: composer@chem.bu.edu
Organization: Boston University Chemistry Department
Lines: 48
In-reply-to: brossard@sic.epfl.ch's message of 7 Apr 91 10:14:19 GMT

In article <1268@sicsun.epfl.ch> brossard@sic.epfl.ch (Alain Brossard EPFL-SIC/SII) writes:
 >	  There is a feature which has just bitten me and made me
 > lose a lot of hours and I think the man page should reflect
 > this.  When doing:
 >
 >    print NEW <FILE>;
 >
 >	   It not only prints the next line of FILE as
 > I wanted but prints all the rest of FILE.  There is a paragraph in
 > the 4.000 man page which relates to this (I think):
 >
 >	If a <FILEHANDLE> is used in a context that is  looking  for
 >	an  array,  an  array  consisting  of all the input lines is
 >	returned, one line per array element.  It's easy to  make  a
 >	LARGE data space this way, so use with care.
 >
 >    At least that is what I think it says, this is what I would
 > call a feature in the bad sense of the word!  Isn't Perl
 > cryptic enough?  Anyway I suggest adding:
 >
 >	   print <STDIN>;
 >
 >    in the paragraph that says that all the following are equivalent:
 >
 >	    while ($_ = <STDIN>) { print; }
 >	    while (<STDIN>) { print; }
 >	    for (;<STDIN>;) { print; }
 >	    print while $_ = <STDIN>;
 >	    print while <STDIN>;
 >
 >    I wanted to do print $_, <FILE>, <FILE>;  and I had to do:
 > print $_ =  <FILE>; print $_ = <FILE>;
 >    The fact that I need to do an assignment seems counter intuitive!

You don't have to do the assignment.  You just need to put the filehandle
into a scalar context.  You can do so using scalar().  So, to do what you
wanted, try:

	print $_, scalar(<FILE>), scalar(<FILE>);

That should do what you expected.

Enjoy...

			-jeff

Jeff Kellem
Internet: composer@chem.bu.edu