Re^5: regex syntax and idomatic Perl

For the record, I stared at that piece of code for an entire beer.

So ... $_ in the for loop, and $y are references ...
and you could have said

substr $x,5,3 =~ s/g/G/;
[download]

Instead of

my $y = \substr $x,5,3;
$$y=~s/g/G/;
[download]

For the same result?

Comment on Re^5: regex syntax and idomatic Perl Select or Download Code

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Re^6: regex syntax and idomatic Perl by haukex (Archbishop) on Mar 23, 2017 at 11:20 UTC
So ... $_ in the for loop, and $y are references Not exactly, `$_` is an alias to the elements being looped over, not a reference (which would need to be dereferenced), see the first few paragraphs of Foreach Loops. Some more fun with aliases, note how the magic substr lvalue remembers its bounds in the string: `our ($x,$y) = "Hello, World!"; *y = \substr $x, 7, 5; # alias via glob $y = "substring"; print "<$x>\n"; # prints <Hello, substring!> $y = "Perl"; print "<$x>\n"; # prints <Hello, Perl!> $x = "Magic, cool stuff!"; print "<$y>\n"; # prints <cool>` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^7: regex syntax and idomatic Perl by cbeckley (Curate) on Mar 23, 2017 at 14:44 UTC
Ah, I think I see (again). So, in the for loop, $_ is an alias to the same memory location as the element in the list being looped over. If that memory location is occupied by something that is semantically an lvalue, then $_ behaves as if it were a C pointer, which is to say, behaves just like the thing it's pointing to. If the memory location is not an lvalue, then $_ does not behave like a C pointer, but still behaves like the thing it's pointing to. Is that right? I have to stop trying to understand the mechanics of Perl in terms of C. <Insert Yoda quote here.> So, $_ is imbued with the semantic context of the thing that occupies the memory location to which it points. Still thinking in C, clearly ...	[reply]
Re^6: regex syntax and idomatic Perl by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Mar 23, 2017 at 01:43 UTC
Yes, except for a precedence problem: `c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "my $x = 'abcdefghi'; substr($x, 5, 3) =~ s/g/G/; print $x; " abcdefGhi` [download] Without some sort of scoping disambiguation, the `s/g/G/` binds to `3` in `substr $x,5,3 =~ s/g/G/;` Give a man a fish: `<%-{-{-{-<`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^7: regex syntax and idomatic Perl by cbeckley (Curate) on Mar 23, 2017 at 02:05 UTC
Ah, yes, I suspected that might be the case. Didn't have access to a command prompt, alas.	[reply]


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