On Tue, Oct 07, 2003 at 01:09:26AM +0200, Kevin Pfeiffer wrote:
> I just noticed that:
>
> print join ", ", @list, "\n";
>
> produces output such as:
>
> a,
> a, b, c,
>
> whereas:
>
> print join(", ", @list), "\n";
>
> produces:
>
> a
> a, b, c
>
> (no trailing comma) -- strange... I think I remember reading somewhere
> that without the parentheses 'join' doesn't really know exactly where
> to stop. Sound right?
It's not *wrong*, but you make this sound more haphazard than it
really is. The join() operator takes a scalar and a list -- so
when you don't use parentheses, the expression is parsed like this.
my @array = qw(a b c);
print( join(',', @array, "\n") );
The comma, the elements of the array, and the newline will all be
passed as arguments to join(). So join() puts a comma between
"a" and "b", between "b" and "c", and between "c" and "\n".
Then print() gets just one argument: the result of join(), which is
the string "a,b,c,\n".
If you add the parentheses yourself and put them here:
my @array = qw(a b c);
print( join(',', @array), "\n" );
# ----> ^ <----
Then the comma and the elements of @array -- but NOT the newline --
are passed as arguments to join(). In this case join() puts a comma
between "a" and "b" and between "b" and "c". And this time print()
gets two arguments: the result of join(), which is "a,b,c", and the
newline.
--
Steve
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