Re^3: scanning hash

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Re^4: scanning hash by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Aug 01, 2004 at 15:20 UTC
Oh dear. Next thing we will argue about whether the equality of two values can be determined by the equality of their string representations. `:-)` Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]
Re^5: scanning hash by ysth (Canon) on Aug 02, 2004 at 19:50 UTC
(puzzled) If you really want...I'll start us off. You can't determine the equality of two values from the equality of their string representations.	[reply]
Re^6: scanning hash by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Aug 02, 2004 at 20:13 UTC
To illustrate the point: `$ perl -le '$a = $b = "foo"; print \$a eq \$b ? "true" : "false"' false` [download] The strings are identical, but they're two different strings. The string representations of references to them differ. Are they equal or not? This is a question of semantics that you can't answer without additional context. Indeed, if we just accept the string representation as the universal measure of equality, then ambrus is right: the empty string and undef are equal, and thus all of my arguing has been moot. However, experience tells me it is a prudent bet to assume that in most situations, undef needs to be treated differently from an empty string. Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^7: scanning hash by ysth (Canon) on Aug 02, 2004 at 20:20 UTC
Re^8: scanning hash by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Aug 02, 2004 at 20:37 UTC


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