Re: FileHandles in a Hash (<> ambiguity)

Without testing I think you fell into a special trap of '<>'...

The <> operator has DWIM magic to act either as glob or readline.

So it tries to use your hash like a list of filename patterns to be expanded like glob does.

Like others indicated just use readline to avoid ambiguity or copy the hash element to a simple scalar.

HTH! :)

Cheers Rolf

( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

update

see I/O Operators:

If what's within the angle brackets is neither a filehandle nor a simple scalar variable containing a filehandle name, typeglob, or typeglob reference, it is interpreted as a filename pattern to be globbed, and either a list of filenames or the next filename in the list is returned, depending on context.

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Re^2: FileHandles in a Hash (<> ambiguity) by morgon (Priest) on May 28, 2014 at 22:10 UTC
For my own understanding I try to reformulate what is happening: When you do `open $teamAccts{$key}..` the expression `$teamAccts{$key}` refers to a reference to a GLOB. When you put that into angles it should (from my point of view) be interpreted as a filehandle but for whatever reason it is not - rather it is treated as a glob-pattern that is first stringified (that gives the `GLOB(...)` value which is then "globbed". Because no file in the current directory matches that pattern, the pattern is returned. This behaviour of glob is probably to mimik the broken glob-behaviour of shells: `perl -e print glob("hubba"); # prints "hubba" even if you don't have +a file "hubba"` [download] whereas: `perl -e print glob("hubba*"); # prints nothing, provided no file matc +hes` [download] So this is why `<$teamAccts{$key}>` returns `GLOB(...)` For my taste this is not simply a wart but a hunchback with a wart on top of perl... You have tried to combine in a natural way two of perl's features (hashes and the angle-operator) and and were bitten by a total lack of orthogonality. Really nothing to boast about...	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: FileHandles in a Hash (<> ambiguity) by LanX (Saint) on May 29, 2014 at 01:58 UTC
Well Perl started as a script language, that's why it mimics glob. I rarely use <> for globbing, and I wouldn't mind if this feature would be disabled. And I agree that this DWIM logic is somehow surprising. But everybody is free to overload <> to do so. Your second critic about glob() is somehow cryptic for me, if you say `touch hubba` you don't want to touch "nothing" because `hubba` doesn't already exist. Perl's success in its early years came from its compatibility with established tools. Otherwise we wouldn't be here discussing Perl... Cheers Rolf ( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)	[reply] [d/l] [select]


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