Two weeks ago, Nicholas Clark wrote: > So would it be possible for s/// to have the same return values as m// > in perl6?
Since no one authoritative has responded to this, I will just add my support that it seems like a reasonable request. s/// currently "returns the number of substitutions made. Otherwise it returns false". If s/// were to return the $0 object from its matching pass, $0 would evaluate to true or false in boolean context, depending on if a match was successful, and would evaluate the number of matches in numeric context. Which is the same behavior as the perl5 s/// return value. (Actually s/// returns "" on no matches now, whereas $0 would evaluate to false or 0 depending on context, but I doubt that would be a serious compatibility issue.) And getting the matching values before substition was done is a bonus in list context. ~ John Williams
