Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!oliveb!veritas!amdcad!sono!porky!mayer
From: mayer@sono.uucp (Ronald &)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: using perl interactively [summary and more questions]
Message-ID: <MAYER.91May24142354@porky.sono.uucp>
Date: 24 May 91 21:23:54 GMT
Sender: mayer@sono.uucp (Ronald Mayer)
Distribution: comp
Organization: ACUSON, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 30


[In a recent email message I asked for a more user-friendly
interactive interface with access to perl commands kinda like
a combination of perl, a shell, and a calculator.
In this message a was asking for a method to determine whether a
line of input entered by the user contains a syntax error of if it
is potentially part of a valid multi-line perl statement.]

All responses I recieved told me that the best way they knew of to
determine this is to '$@ =~ /at EOF/'.  While this works fine for
some programming styles, it fails for others.  i.e.
        eval 'for $i (1..10) {' # ($@ =~ /at EOF/) == TRUE
        eval 'for $i (1..10)'   # ($@ =~ /at EOF/) == FALSE

The source of my difficulty seems to be related to the fact that eval
appends a ';' to the end of the string before evaling it.  Is it
really necessary for eval to do this?  Is there a way to turn off this
feature? 

            Ron Mayer
            mayer@sono.uucp   sun!sono!mayer