On Sun, 24 Jun 2001, Bradford Ritchie wrote:
> Wow, thanks for all the replies. I'm surprised no one commented on my question
>about the matching operator itself:
>
> > Does anyone know why m//g only returns true on success instead of
> > returning the number of matches like s///g and tr/// do.
>
> I realize I'm not identifying some major flaw in the language and but
> I can't think of any reason why m//g was made not to return the number
> of matches while s///g was. It just seems like it should.
s//g and tr/// are different than m//g because they actually change the
input data whereas m//g doesn't. m//g *does* return the number of matches
if you use it in the correct context (as we have already discussed to
death...). I think it's more a matter of usage -- the match operator
tends to be used in a boolean expression than do s// and tr///.
-- Brett
http://www.chapelperilous.net/btfwk/
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Keep the number of passes in a compiler to a minimum.
-- D. Gries
