Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation?

gube has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi monks,

While, dereferencing and printing the reference array i am getting the exact values stored in the array. But, while dereferencing the array and printing by concatinate with some text i am getting length of the array do i need some changes in my code ?

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my @a = qw/a b c/;
my $a = \@a;
print @{$a}; # Printing correct output abc...
# It prints length of the array why?
print "Dereference and Printing the Reference array " . @{$a};
[download]

2006-04-26 Retitled by planetscape, as per Monastery guidelines
Original title: 'Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatinate?'

Comment on Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation? Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation? by gaal (Parson) on Apr 24, 2006 at 12:33 UTC
This has nothing to do with references. `my @a = qw/a b c/; print "Here are the elements. Notice the comma ", @a; print "Here's the size. Notice the dot " . @a;` [download] The concatenation operator "." puts the expression `@a` in scalar context. This also would print the size: `print "Notice the comma, but also 'scalar' ", scalar @a;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation? by gube (Parson) on Apr 24, 2006 at 12:44 UTC
Hi gaal, Thanks for your reply if i use comma it's working fine..This is nothing to do with reference <reply> I have used a long code, in that code while debug i have doubt so, i paste the small sample code...Thx..	[reply]
Re: Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation? by TedPride (Priest) on Apr 24, 2006 at 12:45 UTC
Actually, there's no need to use `{}` in this situation, since the reference is a simple variable, not something like `@{$arr[0]}`. You can just do `@$ref`. Also, as a matter of general policy, you don't want to use `$a`, since it's one of the variables Perl uses for sorting. `use strict; use warnings; my @x = qw/a b c/; my $x = \@x; print "Array elements with spaces: @$x";` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation? by davorg (Chancellor) on Apr 24, 2006 at 12:43 UTC
Or... `print "Dereference and Printing the Reference array @{$a}";` [download] That has the bonus of putting spaces (or whatever $" is set to) between the elements of your array. -- <http://dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club." -- Chip Salzenberg	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation? by sen (Hermit) on Apr 24, 2006 at 12:35 UTC
Hi gube try this `print "Dereference and Printing the Reference array " , @{$a};` [download]	[reply] [d/l]


Perl: the Markov chain saw
	PerlMonks