In a message dated Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Mike Lambert writes: > Consider: > $a = (1); > and > ($a) = (1);
Yes? They both do the same thing--set $a to 1. It looks like the bottom one is a list assigned to a list, but that might be optimized out, as it doesn't matter. > > 5. Assignment to arrays and lists. > > > > $a = (1, 2, 3); # Same as Perl 5's $a = [1,2,3]; > > $a = (1) should then do $a = [1], according to the above. I most definitely did not write that. Did you read my conclusion? One-tuples are special and can't be created simply with round parens. > This implies that: > > ($a) = (1) implies that $a is [1], something I don't particularly agree > with. Once again, did you read my conclusion? One-tuples are special. > > How would you resolve this contradiction you've created? (Or do you think > the last example is perfectly fine?) No contradiction. One-tuples are special. > What about: > $a = 1,2,3 I don't know. I think Larry must adjudicate. > ($a) = (1,2,3) $a gets 1, I think. Otherwise you can't do list assignment where you throw away the trailing elements, which is a very common and useful thing to do in Perl 5. Losing that ability in Perl 6 would be a great loss. > $a = (1,2,3) By definition, according to Larry, $a is [1,2,3]. > ($a) = 1,2,3 Same as without the parens. Larry must decide. > Do you still believe those should be identical? They have the same > problems mentioned above, and likely other issues as well. Oh, wait, I think I see where you're going. You didn't read the whole thread to date before responding. I later quoted my own text there and said that arbitrary X was not what I meant. I meant a single scalar item, such as 7, but I changed it to X in an effort to be general without considering what that meant. My mistake. Trey
