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From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: length operator
Keywords: quibble
Message-ID: <1990Feb15.230159.8255@iwarp.intel.com>
Date: 15 Feb 90 23:01:59 GMT
References: <13103@cgl.ucsf.EDU>
Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Lines: 29
In-Reply-To: pett@cgl.ucsf.edu (Eric Pettersen)

In article <13103@cgl.ucsf.EDU>, pett@cgl (Eric Pettersen) writes:
| 
| 	IMHO, the "length" operator should not allow the "length EXPR" syntax.
| I often want to handle "length-2" which, because the above syntax is legal,
| forces me to write "length($_) - 2" instead.  Not to mention causing me some
| lost time while trying to figure out why "length-2" doesn't work.  This has
| probably caught other people as well.  Does "length EXPR" have any supporters?

$_ = "a long string";
$len = (length)-2;
print "the length is $len\n";
$len = length()-2;
print "the length is still $len\n";

prints:

the length is 11
the length is still 11

Okay, so it is still a bit icky.  Being able to type "length > 128" (a
good thing) means having that silly optional EXPR stuff (a bad thing).
Maybe there's an alternate, but it won't make it into patch 9. :-)

$_="Just another Perl hacker,";for$i(1..length){print substr($_,$i-1,1);}
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
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