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Re^2: How does Math::GMP overload the assignment operator ?by syphilis (Archbishop) |
on Nov 08, 2020 at 05:59 UTC ( [id://11123482]=note: print w/replies, xml ) | Need Help?? |
The + overload constructs a new object. Perl uses that overload, and then overwrites the stored value. This means every += op creates a new object Thanks for the explanation - helps me understand what's going on, and also helps me understand the overload documentation. Not that it needed to be checked, but with the help of Devel::Peek::Dump() I was able to verify that, with Math::GMP, the address of the object does indeed change with every += And I was also able to verify that the same is not true of Math::GMPz. I find this overloading of '=' to be a bit of a headache, in that it provides a lot more rope than I would like. WRT Math::GMP, if you have a Math::GMP object ($x) to which you wish to add, say, 4 then there's 2 ways you can do that: They both do the same thing in that they increase the value held in $x by 4. But they don't do the same thing if they were preceded by $x = $orig; where $orig is a Math::GMP object: VERSUS: AFAIK, the same sort of trap occurs in every math module that overloads '=', including my own Math modules, along with Math::BigInt and Math::BigFloat. (This is not limited to Math::GMP, and I'm not singling it out.) Although it doesn't really fit with the title I've given this thread, a second question is "Should the documentation of the module (eg Math::GMP) draw attention to this trap ?". Or is it acceptable to say nothing and put the onus of dodging the trap upon the user ? BTW, this all started with this Math::MPFR bug report, which is about this same trap in a different module. I keep changing my mind about what, if anything, should be done .... Cheers, Rob
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