Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!rodney From: rodney@dali.ipl.rpi.edu (Rodney Peck II) Subject: Re: Ruminations on the future of Perl Message-ID: Nntp-Posting-Host: dali.ipl.rpi.edu Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY References: <1991Jun28.212606.19054@convex.com> Date: 30 Jun 91 21:31:48 GMT Lines: 41 In article rusty@groan.Berkeley.EDU (Rusty Wright) writes: [...] >Similarly, in the "Syntax" section are examples for opening "foo" and >dying if it can't be opened, with the classic > > open(foo) || die "Can't open $foo: $!"; > >(but which I find to be just hackeritis show-off). I don't understand -- I use this all the time. really. what's the problem? [...] >3) getpgrp and getppid: what's wrong with this picture? I was once >trying to create a temporary file (wanting to use the process id for >the file's name) and was amazed that perl doesn't have a getpid >function. Then, when I was working on another perl program I stumbled >across $$. I was so aggravated I swore out loud. You must be new to unix -- from the csh man page: CSH(1) USER COMMANDS CSH(1) [...] $$ Substitute the process number of the (parent) shell. Sun Release 4.1 Last change: 2 October 1989 9 It wasn't Larry's idea. Everyone has been using $$ as the pid since time began. It didn't occur to me that it might not be obvious until you mentioned that you were swearing out loud about it. In fact, if you say man perl and then search for 'process number' it goes right to $$. Please, lets not be changing perl just because some people can't read the man page. -- Rodney