Interesting comment. Id be interested in hearing more about why you think this was an unfortunate choice.

And how the C-style loop is more cumbersome but more adaptable.

A C-Style for loop is always functionally and internally equivelent to a suitably constructed while loop. The primary differences being that many programmers from a C tradition find the for(;;) syntax more readable, while the rest of us find the while syntax more readble and maintainable. I am in the latter group. :-) Nine time out of ten (more really) when I see someone use a C-Style for loop they are not exploiting the equivelence to a while , but rather using a slightly less readble, more error prone and less efficient form of a for (LIST) loop. I avoid the term foreach because foreach is a synonym to for in perl, they are identical.

E:\Smoke\source>perl -e "foreach (my $i=0;$i<10;$i++) { print $i,$/}"
E:\Smoke\source>perl -e "for     (my $i=0;$i<10;$i++) { print $i,$/}"
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Ultimately id argue that for(;;) is a construct mostly provided to reduce the pain for C junkies, and that in the long term better constructs that are more intuitive and less error prone are available and so should be encouraged.

--- demerphq
my friends call me, usually because I'm late....

Having said that in the time ive been using perl I think ive needed the construct a mere handful of times.

To reinforce the point.. I've literally never used it. There was not a single instance I wasn't equally or better served with the other constructs.

And to be honest, considering the number of cases I advised people not to use for(;;) for whatever they were using it for, and the number of times I restructured loops in others' code to not use it, if it was to disappear from the language I wouldn't shed a tear. Actually, scratch that, I'd be cheering.

Makeshifts last the longest.

ive needed the construct

For the record I didn't mean for (;;) but rather the while () {} continue {} construct which once or twice ive found has come in useful. For instance

while (<$fh>) {
  s/foo/bar/ and next;
  s/yada/yada/ and next;
  #lots more of the same
} continue {
  print $_;
}
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Which _can_ be written without the continue, but when the innerds get a bit complex the continue can result in simpler code. (Sorry, but I had to make it clear ive never written a perl script with for (;;) in it ;-)

Actually, scratch that, I'd be cheering.

No disagreement there... It was that construct that seriously put me off of C when I first encountered it. In fact I still haven't quite got over the trauma of having to use it. :-)

Now, the question is will Perl 6 have the obscene construct in it? My guess is probably... *sigh*

--- demerphq
my friends call me, usually because I'm late....

There is not much more. The context was about changing  for(;;) to  for(@array) or to  map {} @array and doing it with an editor macro to the worst work of a weak group of perlers. In a training presentation to that group.

My points were:

• This, in its presentation, would trivialize the issues.
• The  for(;;) and  for(LIST) constructs are very different.
• This a rather small issue, surely there are more important problems in the above situation.

Your comparison of the  for(;;) and  while loops is a different issue. For the simple cases I prefer a  for( $i=1; $i < 10_000_000; $i++) as all the loop's controls are there upfront. This assumes good practice, i.e. you don't fiddle with  $i while looping. If you mess with  $i then you should use a  while loop.

You say:

Usually when someone uses a C-Style for loop they are not exploiting the equivalence to a while , but rather using a slightly less readable, more error prone and less efficient form of a for (LIST) loop.

Which is exactly the difference I was refering to with: more cumbersome but more adaptable.

If brevity caused my unclarity, please let me know.