Foreach loop provides list context, so foreach my $i ( @{ $aref } ) explodes into its elements
foreach my $i( ['kept', 82], ['notkept', 1], ['repaired', 3] ) { ...
# so $aref->[$i][0]
# looks like $areg->[ ['kept', 82] ][0]
#
Here the first lines out error output:
$ perl buggy_array.pl 2> out.txt
(it hangs here, press Ctrl-C to stop)
$ head -6 out.txt
Use of reference "ARRAY(0x1cfb148)" as array index at ary.pl line 21.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at ary.pl li
+ne 21.
Use of reference "ARRAY(0x1d0fad8)" as array index at ary.pl line 21.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at ary.pl li
+ne 21.
Use of reference "ARRAY(0x1d0fbf8)" as array index at ary.pl line 21.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at ary.pl li
+ne 21.
Now, why does it keep looping?
perl -E 'my $aref=[undef]; say 0 + $aref'
19468616
19468616 is the memory address of $aref here. Which means
$areg->[ ['kept', 82] ][0]
# becomes something like
# $areg->[ 9999999 ][0]
# (or whatever the memory address of that array is...)
When you do stuff like
$aref->[999][0] and element 999 of $aref doesn't exist, Perl will extend $aref. It will fill it with undef, up to element 999.
perl -E 'my $aref=[undef]; $aref->[1000][0]; say scalar @{ $aref }'
1001
They call it 'autovivification' (sp?). (but if you do
$aref->[999][500], Perl will not create the rightmost array - the one with 500 elements)
So, now your $aref has tons of of undefs. So the loop keeps looping and issuing warnings.
So yeah, all in all, that was a pretty interesting question, I must say.
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