On Mon, 2004-05-17 at 13:51, Pedro Larroy wrote: > I thought perl internally would know. At least in perl5 it has to know > somehow, since you can $var++ when is numeric and also when it's a > string, and behaves different in each case.
True. Perl 5 scalars do keep track of the context in which you've used the data they hold. If you treat a scalar like a number, it'll behave like a number. There are some wacky corner cases, though, where you see side-effecty action at a distance. (I remember running across this at least twice, though I don't remember specific examples. DWIM usually works well.) As Luke suggests, there's also programmer clarity to consider. If determining how to compare depends on how you've used the variables to compare, is it harder to understand the code? The solution for an API designer may be "be very careful, then!" but I'm not sure a language designer has that luxury. -- c
