Update: explorer changed the content of the parent post without any indication, so now my reply no longer makes much sense. The parent post originally read that the string "Infinity" evalutes to zero in numeric context, thus 0+"Infinity" is 0, and -"Infinity" was -0.

Did you test it? Besides, why would $arr[0] be different than $arr[-0]?

$ perl -le 'print 0+(-Infinity)'
-inf

$ perl -le 'print 0+("Infinity")'
inf

$ perl -v
This is perl, v5.8.8 built for i486-linux-gnu-thread-multi
[download]

I'm not sure I ever considered using infinity as an array offset. Nor did I guess that 0+"Infinity" would actually be infinity. It is cute that both do reasonable things.

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.