Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!frankland-river!pem
From: pem@frankland-river.aaii.oz.au (Paul E. Maisano)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Passing scalars by reference
Message-ID: <1231@frankland-river.aaii.oz.au>
Date: 6 Mar 90 23:49:46 GMT
References: <1220@frankland-river.aaii.oz.au> <7293@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Organization: Australian AI Institute
Lines: 29

Thanks for the explanation Larry. It's clear what I was doing wrong now.

> : sub foo {
> :     local($x_by_ref_with_meaningful_name) = $_[0];
> :     ...
> :     $x_by_ref_with_meaningful_name .= $foo;	# update the original scalar
> : }

That was just a slip, what I meant to write was:

sub foo {
    local(*x_by_ref_with_meaningful_name) = $_[0];
    ...
    $x_by_ref_with_meaningful_name .= $foo;	# update the original scalar
}

I had tried this. I was however calling foo incorrectly, as in
	&foo($real_name) instead of &foo(*real_name).

The thing that threw me off track was that this actually works, once.

I would be interested in knowing why this happens.

------------------
Paul E. Maisano
Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute
1 Grattan St. Carlton, Vic. 3053, Australia
Ph: +613 663-7922  Fax: +613 663-7937
Email: pem@aaii.oz.au   UUCP: {uunet,mcsun,ukc,nttlab}!munnari!aaii.oz.au!pem