Re: The distinction between "do BLOCK while COND" and "EXPR while COND" should go

[Christopher J. Madsen]

Tom Christiansen writes:
 > >Yes, but 'eval' has the semantics "run this code but don't let it play
 > >any funny tricks on me, like dying or anything", where 'do {...} while'
 > >has the semantics "a while loop that evaluates its condition at the
 > >end".  There's no obvious reason why 'return' should behave
 > >differently in a 'do while' loop than it does in a 'while' loop.
 > 
 > I (well, Perl) really think of do{} much more as a construct that's
 > kin to eval{} and sub{}.  It just has a strange effect on postfix
 > while/until checks, altering when they're consulted.

I realize that, and that's why 'last' & friends don't currently work
in do loops.  But programmers used to C expect 'do ... while' and
'while' to be almost equivalent, and I think most Perl programmers do
too.  (They may realize now that it's not true, but I still think it's
what they originally expected.)  Making 'last' work would cater to
that expectation.  Changing the way 'return' works is counter to it.

-- 
Chris Madsen              http://www.trx.com      [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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