Chapter 1. Basics


If you are experienced in other languages but new to Perl, you are probably still discovering Perl's idiosyncracies. This section deals with some of those idiosyncracies. In particular, it addresses those that can bedevil newly minted Perl programmers who are still attuned to other languages.

For example, you should already know that Perl's variables are generally made up of some piece of punctuation like $ or @ followed by an identifier. But do you know whether different types of variables with the same name , such as $a and @a , are completely independent of one another? They are see Item 1.

You should know that @a is an array, but do you know the difference between $a[$i] and @a[$i] ? The latter is a slice see Item 2.

You should know that the number is false, and that the empty string, "" , is false, but do you know whether the string consisting of a single space, " " , is false? It's true see Item 5.

If you are a more experienced Perl programmer, these first few Items will be mostly review for you. However, you may find some interesting details toward the end of some Items in this section.



Effective Perl Programming. Writing Better Programs with Perl
Effective Perl Programming: Writing Better Programs with Perl
ISBN: 0201419750
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 1996
Pages: 116

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