Re: RFC 39 (v3) Perl should have a print operator

[Nathan Wiger]

Jon Ericson wrote:
> 
> I would want it to return @items:
> 
>   @sorted = sort print @items;
> 
> I'd prefer a different name (tee?) and keep print as it is.


Pretty much all the stuff being discussed right now can be stuck in a
module:

   package Print::Variations;

   use Exporter;
   @EXPORT = qw(printl println printj);

   sub printl {
       # return list as-is
       print(@_) ? return @_ : return undef;
   }

   sub printj {
       # return joined string
       my $str = join '', @_;
       print(@_) ? return $str : return undef;
   }

   sub println {
       # add a newline and return T/F
       print(@_, "\n");
   }


   #! perl -w
   use Print::Variations;

   # Make Bart and me happy
   $formatted = printj $r->param('name'), " is $age years old.\n";

   # Make Jon happy
   @sorted = sort { $a <=> $b } printl "@items\n";

   # Make the Pascal lovers happy
   println "Hello, World!";


Is all this stuff cool? Maybe. Does it belong in core? Definitely not.
Is it important enough to warrant special operators? I remain
unconvinced.

Granted, these functions can't handle different filehandles, etc, but if
some of the RFC's get included that attempt to fix this it should be
trivial.

-Nate