--- "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 2003-02-07 at 11:13:07, Austin Hastings wrote: > > --- Michael Lazzaro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I'm trying, and failing, to accurately and definitively answer > the > > > question "what's the difference between an array and a list in > > > Perl6?" > > > > How's this? > > ============ > > > > A list is a literal (e.g., '(3, "Hello, world")') that can be used > as > > the initializer for an array. > > > > [...] places in perl that require "an array" can be given a list. > The > > exception is lvalues -- you can't say 3 = "Hello, world"; -- the > > left-hand side of an assignment operation requires an assignable > > thing, not a literal. So the difference between a list and an > array > > is one of assignability. > Not really, though. A list can be an lvalue, provided it is a list > of lvalues: > > ($a, $b, $c) = 1,2,3;
Hmm. You're kind of weaseling there because that's "DWIM magic" for 3 lines of code, but I don't know how to get there. > Although this may reasonably be regarded as a special case; you > certainly can't pop a list: > > (1,2,3).pop => error But could you do it the other way (function instead of method)? pop (1,2,3) => ? > But there's also the case of anonymous arrays, constructed through > reference via [ . . . ]. These are pop'able: > > [1,2,3].pop => 3 > > But they certainly aren't lvalues: > > [$a,$b,$c] = 1,2,3 => error Actually, they're literal array references, not arrays. I'm unsure how the mechanics are going to act in p6, since we're hiding the -> on refs. But in my heart of (c coding) hearts, it's a pointer. =Austin
