Re: == and != don't work as expected

Perl is a weakly typed language. Unlike C, for isntance, if you wanted to create a number then a string you could do:

my $string = 1;
$string = "code";  # we can reuse the variable name
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versus:

char* mystring = "this is a C style string";
int   myInt    = 1; // Can't reuse variable names
                    // plus need to declare the type
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You will find this paradigm called DWIM (Do What I Mean) by a lot of people. Basically, part of the price we pay for DWIM is that the interpreter doesn't choke and die on ambiguities, but makes a best guess.

Comment on Re: == and != don't work as expected Select or Download Code

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Re^2: == and != don't work as expected by chromatic (Archbishop) on Aug 09, 2004 at 17:23 UTC
Perl is a weakly typed language. `<mini_rant>` No, it's not. It just doesn't associate the type with the name, as you might expect. Try coercing a hash to an array in place or treating a scalar as an array, for example. C's typing system is only slightly more advanced than bare assembly code. `</mini_rant>`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: == and != don't work as expected by Vautrin (Hermit) on Aug 26, 2004 at 14:14 UTC
Out of curiousity, can you name some weakly typed languages with your definition? Want to support the EFF and FSF by buying cool stuff? Click here.	[reply]
Re^4: == and != don't work as expected by chromatic (Archbishop) on Aug 26, 2004 at 17:18 UTC
Assembly, C, C++ (where it copies C), and Java all have weak type systems, according to this definition. Don't mistake a static system which requires knowing type information at compile time with a strong system which, when it has any meaning at all, usually means that you can't (or don't need to) subvert the type system. If you have to cast to do your work, you have a weak type system.	[reply]
Re^5: == and != don't work as expected by Vautrin (Hermit) on Aug 27, 2004 at 15:51 UTC
Re^6: == and != don't work as expected by chromatic (Archbishop) on Aug 27, 2004 at 16:34 UTC


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