On Aug 15, 3:16pm, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Wholeheartedly agreed. If something is an array, it should start with @.
> If we're adding language changes that introduce arrays that don't start
> with @, that's the mistake.
Agreed, but with a slight change of perspective. I don't think it's
so important that a variable that _holds_ a list be prefixed with a '@'.
What's more important is that when you _use_ a variable, you prefix it with
a '@' to indicate the expected return type. At that point, Perl can DWIM
or FOAD accordingly.
e.g.
$foo = [ 1, 2, 3 ]; # it's a list (ref), but starts with a '$'
@bar = @$foo; # but now we "cast" (deref) it to look like a list
The confusion comes (IMHO) in having to add funny characters together,
or doing funky "casting" to make the right kind of value come from the
right kind of variable.
@$foo; # '$foo' is the list, dereferenced to a list '@'
$foo{bar} # '%foo' is the hash, accessed to return a scalar '$'
@foo{bar,baz} # '%foo' is the hash, sliced to return a list '@'
@$foo{bar,baz} # '$foo' is a hashref, sliced to return a list '@'
You get these weird situations where you're accessing a variable as
'@something' but it's actually coming from '%something'. Hence the
Highlander Variables RFC which should hopefully do away with
much of this confusion.
A
--
Andy Wardley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Signature regenerating. Please remain seated.
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For a good time: http://www.kfs.org/~abw/
