Dave Mitchell wrote: > On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 10:06:29PM -0000, Smylers wrote: > > > More practically, the length of a list is never interesting: a list > > by definition must be hardcoded into the program so its length is > > known at compile time. > > Err, no. Eg in perl 5: > > $value = (1,2, @ARGV,3,4)[$i] > > That's a list, and its length is not known at compile time.
Ooops, yes. I was overstating the case that a list's length must be known at compile time. But I'd still maintain that the length isn't interesting. In your example you are picking out a particular element, which is reasonable and I've got no objection with that. What I don't understand is why a list in numeric context should yield its length, and that still applies to your example. There's no advantage in doing: $length = 1 + (1, 2, @ARGV, 3, 4); over the much more straightforward: $length = 5 + @ARGV; Smylers
