Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: @array in scalar context
Message-ID: <15204@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Date: 26 Feb 90 14:24:59 GMT
References: <JV.90Feb24134508@mhres.mh.nl> <7165@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Distribution: comp
Lines: 22

>: Is it defined that a scalar reference to an @array yields its last
>: element? 

In article <7165@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
>Does anyone actually use this to get at the last value of an array?  If not,
>we could easily change it to return the number of elements in the array.
>
>	print "ok\n" if @array == $#array - $[ + 1;

I suspect some scripts use it to get at the ONLY value of an array, e.g.

	open(UNAME,"/bin/uname -s|");
	$uname = <UNAME>;
	close(UNAME);

In this case ($uname) = <UNAME> would have the same effect, but surely
people do use the shorthand form.

I would rather overload the length() operator in this case.
-- 
 1955-1975: 36 Elvis movies.  |  Tom Neff
 1975-1989: nothing.          |  tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET