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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
3 | perlop - Perl operators and precedence |
4 | |
5 | =head1 SYNOPSIS |
6 | |
7 | Perl operators have the following associativity and precedence, |
8 | listed from highest precedence to lowest. Note that all operators |
9 | borrowed from C keep the same precedence relationship with each other, |
10 | even where C's precedence is slightly screwy. (This makes learning |
11 | Perl easier for C folks.) |
12 | |
13 | left terms and list operators (leftward) |
14 | left -> |
15 | nonassoc ++ -- |
16 | right ** |
17 | right ! ~ \ and unary + and - |
18 | left =~ !~ |
19 | left * / % x |
20 | left + - . |
21 | left << >> |
22 | nonassoc named unary operators |
23 | nonassoc < > <= >= lt gt le ge |
24 | nonassoc == != <=> eq ne cmp |
25 | left & |
26 | left | ^ |
27 | left && |
28 | left || |
29 | nonassoc .. |
30 | right ?: |
31 | right = += -= *= etc. |
32 | left , => |
33 | nonassoc list operators (rightward) |
34 | left not |
35 | left and |
36 | left or xor |
37 | |
38 | In the following sections, these operators are covered in precedence order. |
39 | |
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40 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
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41 | |
42 | =head2 Terms and List Operators (Leftward) |
43 | |
44 | Any TERM is of highest precedence of Perl. These includes variables, |
45 | quote and quotelike operators, any expression in parentheses, |
46 | and any function whose arguments are parenthesized. Actually, there |
47 | aren't really functions in this sense, just list operators and unary |
48 | operators behaving as functions because you put parentheses around |
49 | the arguments. These are all documented in L<perlfunc>. |
50 | |
51 | If any list operator (print(), etc.) or any unary operator (chdir(), etc.) |
52 | is followed by a left parenthesis as the next token, the operator and |
53 | arguments within parentheses are taken to be of highest precedence, |
54 | just like a normal function call. |
55 | |
56 | In the absence of parentheses, the precedence of list operators such as |
57 | C<print>, C<sort>, or C<chmod> is either very high or very low depending on |
58 | whether you look at the left side of operator or the right side of it. |
59 | For example, in |
60 | |
61 | @ary = (1, 3, sort 4, 2); |
62 | print @ary; # prints 1324 |
63 | |
64 | the commas on the right of the sort are evaluated before the sort, but |
65 | the commas on the left are evaluated after. In other words, list |
66 | operators tend to gobble up all the arguments that follow them, and |
67 | then act like a simple TERM with regard to the preceding expression. |
68 | Note that you have to be careful with parens: |
69 | |
70 | # These evaluate exit before doing the print: |
71 | print($foo, exit); # Obviously not what you want. |
72 | print $foo, exit; # Nor is this. |
73 | |
74 | # These do the print before evaluating exit: |
75 | (print $foo), exit; # This is what you want. |
76 | print($foo), exit; # Or this. |
77 | print ($foo), exit; # Or even this. |
78 | |
79 | Also note that |
80 | |
81 | print ($foo & 255) + 1, "\n"; |
82 | |
83 | probably doesn't do what you expect at first glance. See |
84 | L<Named Unary Operators> for more discussion of this. |
85 | |
86 | Also parsed as terms are the C<do {}> and C<eval {}> constructs, as |
87 | well as subroutine and method calls, and the anonymous |
88 | constructors C<[]> and C<{}>. |
89 | |
90 | See also L<Quote and Quotelike Operators> toward the end of this section, |
91 | as well as L<I/O Operators>. |
92 | |
93 | =head2 The Arrow Operator |
94 | |
95 | Just as in C and C++, "C<-E<gt>>" is an infix dereference operator. If the |
96 | right side is either a C<[...]> or C<{...}> subscript, then the left side |
97 | must be either a hard or symbolic reference to an array or hash (or |
98 | a location capable of holding a hard reference, if it's an lvalue (assignable)). |
99 | See L<perlref>. |
100 | |
101 | Otherwise, the right side is a method name or a simple scalar variable |
102 | containing the method name, and the left side must either be an object |
103 | (a blessed reference) or a class name (that is, a package name). |
104 | See L<perlobj>. |
105 | |
106 | =head2 Autoincrement and Autodecrement |
107 | |
108 | "++" and "--" work as in C. That is, if placed before a variable, they |
109 | increment or decrement the variable before returning the value, and if |
110 | placed after, increment or decrement the variable after returning the value. |
111 | |
112 | The autoincrement operator has a little extra built-in magic to it. If |
113 | you increment a variable that is numeric, or that has ever been used in |
114 | a numeric context, you get a normal increment. If, however, the |
115 | variable has only been used in string contexts since it was set, and |
116 | has a value that is not null and matches the pattern |
117 | C</^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*$/>, the increment is done as a string, preserving each |
118 | character within its range, with carry: |
119 | |
120 | print ++($foo = '99'); # prints '100' |
121 | print ++($foo = 'a0'); # prints 'a1' |
122 | print ++($foo = 'Az'); # prints 'Ba' |
123 | print ++($foo = 'zz'); # prints 'aaa' |
124 | |
125 | The autodecrement operator is not magical. |
126 | |
127 | =head2 Exponentiation |
128 | |
129 | Binary "**" is the exponentiation operator. Note that it binds even more |
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130 | tightly than unary minus, so -2**4 is -(2**4), not (-2)**4. (This is |
131 | implemented using C's pow(3) function, which actually works on doubles |
132 | internally.) |
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133 | |
134 | =head2 Symbolic Unary Operators |
135 | |
136 | Unary "!" performs logical negation, i.e. "not". See also C<not> for a lower |
137 | precedence version of this. |
138 | |
139 | Unary "-" performs arithmetic negation if the operand is numeric. If |
140 | the operand is an identifier, a string consisting of a minus sign |
141 | concatenated with the identifier is returned. Otherwise, if the string |
142 | starts with a plus or minus, a string starting with the opposite sign |
143 | is returned. One effect of these rules is that C<-bareword> is equivalent |
144 | to C<"-bareword">. |
145 | |
146 | Unary "~" performs bitwise negation, i.e. 1's complement. |
147 | |
148 | Unary "+" has no effect whatsoever, even on strings. It is useful |
149 | syntactically for separating a function name from a parenthesized expression |
150 | that would otherwise be interpreted as the complete list of function |
151 | arguments. (See examples above under L<List Operators>.) |
152 | |
153 | Unary "\" creates a reference to whatever follows it. See L<perlref>. |
154 | Do not confuse this behavior with the behavior of backslash within a |
155 | string, although both forms do convey the notion of protecting the next |
156 | thing from interpretation. |
157 | |
158 | =head2 Binding Operators |
159 | |
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160 | Binary "=~" binds an expression to a pattern match. Certain operations |
161 | search or modify the string $_ by default. This operator makes that kind |
162 | of operation work on some other string. The right argument is a search |
163 | pattern, substitution, or translation. The left argument is what is |
164 | supposed to be searched, substituted, or translated instead of the default |
165 | $_. The return value indicates the success of the operation. (If the |
166 | right argument is an expression rather than a search pattern, |
167 | substitution, or translation, it is interpreted as a search pattern at run |
168 | time. This is less efficient than an explicit search, since the pattern |
169 | must be compiled every time the expression is evaluated--unless you've |
170 | used C</o>.) |
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171 | |
172 | Binary "!~" is just like "=~" except the return value is negated in |
173 | the logical sense. |
174 | |
175 | =head2 Multiplicative Operators |
176 | |
177 | Binary "*" multiplies two numbers. |
178 | |
179 | Binary "/" divides two numbers. |
180 | |
181 | Binary "%" computes the modulus of the two numbers. |
182 | |
183 | Binary "x" is the repetition operator. In a scalar context, it |
184 | returns a string consisting of the left operand repeated the number of |
185 | times specified by the right operand. In a list context, if the left |
186 | operand is a list in parens, it repeats the list. |
187 | |
188 | print '-' x 80; # print row of dashes |
189 | |
190 | print "\t" x ($tab/8), ' ' x ($tab%8); # tab over |
191 | |
192 | @ones = (1) x 80; # a list of 80 1's |
193 | @ones = (5) x @ones; # set all elements to 5 |
194 | |
195 | |
196 | =head2 Additive Operators |
197 | |
198 | Binary "+" returns the sum of two numbers. |
199 | |
200 | Binary "-" returns the difference of two numbers. |
201 | |
202 | Binary "." concatenates two strings. |
203 | |
204 | =head2 Shift Operators |
205 | |
206 | Binary "<<" returns the value of its left argument shifted left by the |
207 | number of bits specified by the right argument. Arguments should be |
208 | integers. |
209 | |
210 | Binary ">>" returns the value of its left argument shifted right by the |
211 | number of bits specified by the right argument. Arguments should be |
212 | integers. |
213 | |
214 | =head2 Named Unary Operators |
215 | |
216 | The various named unary operators are treated as functions with one |
217 | argument, with optional parentheses. These include the filetest |
218 | operators, like C<-f>, C<-M>, etc. See L<perlfunc>. |
219 | |
220 | If any list operator (print(), etc.) or any unary operator (chdir(), etc.) |
221 | is followed by a left parenthesis as the next token, the operator and |
222 | arguments within parentheses are taken to be of highest precedence, |
223 | just like a normal function call. Examples: |
224 | |
225 | chdir $foo || die; # (chdir $foo) || die |
226 | chdir($foo) || die; # (chdir $foo) || die |
227 | chdir ($foo) || die; # (chdir $foo) || die |
228 | chdir +($foo) || die; # (chdir $foo) || die |
229 | |
230 | but, because * is higher precedence than ||: |
231 | |
232 | chdir $foo * 20; # chdir ($foo * 20) |
233 | chdir($foo) * 20; # (chdir $foo) * 20 |
234 | chdir ($foo) * 20; # (chdir $foo) * 20 |
235 | chdir +($foo) * 20; # chdir ($foo * 20) |
236 | |
237 | rand 10 * 20; # rand (10 * 20) |
238 | rand(10) * 20; # (rand 10) * 20 |
239 | rand (10) * 20; # (rand 10) * 20 |
240 | rand +(10) * 20; # rand (10 * 20) |
241 | |
242 | See also L<"List Operators">. |
243 | |
244 | =head2 Relational Operators |
245 | |
246 | Binary "<" returns true if the left argument is numerically less than |
247 | the right argument. |
248 | |
249 | Binary ">" returns true if the left argument is numerically greater |
250 | than the right argument. |
251 | |
252 | Binary "<=" returns true if the left argument is numerically less than |
253 | or equal to the right argument. |
254 | |
255 | Binary ">=" returns true if the left argument is numerically greater |
256 | than or equal to the right argument. |
257 | |
258 | Binary "lt" returns true if the left argument is stringwise less than |
259 | the right argument. |
260 | |
261 | Binary "gt" returns true if the left argument is stringwise greater |
262 | than the right argument. |
263 | |
264 | Binary "le" returns true if the left argument is stringwise less than |
265 | or equal to the right argument. |
266 | |
267 | Binary "ge" returns true if the left argument is stringwise greater |
268 | than or equal to the right argument. |
269 | |
270 | =head2 Equality Operators |
271 | |
272 | Binary "==" returns true if the left argument is numerically equal to |
273 | the right argument. |
274 | |
275 | Binary "!=" returns true if the left argument is numerically not equal |
276 | to the right argument. |
277 | |
278 | Binary "<=>" returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the left argument is numerically |
279 | less than, equal to, or greater than the right argument. |
280 | |
281 | Binary "eq" returns true if the left argument is stringwise equal to |
282 | the right argument. |
283 | |
284 | Binary "ne" returns true if the left argument is stringwise not equal |
285 | to the right argument. |
286 | |
287 | Binary "cmp" returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the left argument is stringwise |
288 | less than, equal to, or greater than the right argument. |
289 | |
290 | =head2 Bitwise And |
291 | |
292 | Binary "&" returns its operators ANDed together bit by bit. |
293 | |
294 | =head2 Bitwise Or and Exclusive Or |
295 | |
296 | Binary "|" returns its operators ORed together bit by bit. |
297 | |
298 | Binary "^" returns its operators XORed together bit by bit. |
299 | |
300 | =head2 C-style Logical And |
301 | |
302 | Binary "&&" performs a short-circuit logical AND operation. That is, |
303 | if the left operand is false, the right operand is not even evaluated. |
304 | Scalar or list context propagates down to the right operand if it |
305 | is evaluated. |
306 | |
307 | =head2 C-style Logical Or |
308 | |
309 | Binary "||" performs a short-circuit logical OR operation. That is, |
310 | if the left operand is true, the right operand is not even evaluated. |
311 | Scalar or list context propagates down to the right operand if it |
312 | is evaluated. |
313 | |
314 | The C<||> and C<&&> operators differ from C's in that, rather than returning |
315 | 0 or 1, they return the last value evaluated. Thus, a reasonably portable |
316 | way to find out the home directory (assuming it's not "0") might be: |
317 | |
318 | $home = $ENV{'HOME'} || $ENV{'LOGDIR'} || |
319 | (getpwuid($<))[7] || die "You're homeless!\n"; |
320 | |
321 | As more readable alternatives to C<&&> and C<||>, Perl provides "and" and |
322 | "or" operators (see below). The short-circuit behavior is identical. The |
323 | precedence of "and" and "or" is much lower, however, so that you can |
324 | safely use them after a list operator without the need for |
325 | parentheses: |
326 | |
327 | unlink "alpha", "beta", "gamma" |
328 | or gripe(), next LINE; |
329 | |
330 | With the C-style operators that would have been written like this: |
331 | |
332 | unlink("alpha", "beta", "gamma") |
333 | || (gripe(), next LINE); |
334 | |
335 | =head2 Range Operator |
336 | |
337 | Binary ".." is the range operator, which is really two different |
338 | operators depending on the context. In a list context, it returns an |
339 | array of values counting (by ones) from the left value to the right |
340 | value. This is useful for writing C<for (1..10)> loops and for doing |
341 | slice operations on arrays. Be aware that under the current implementation, |
342 | a temporary array is created, so you'll burn a lot of memory if you |
343 | write something like this: |
344 | |
345 | for (1 .. 1_000_000) { |
346 | # code |
347 | } |
348 | |
349 | In a scalar context, ".." returns a boolean value. The operator is |
350 | bistable, like a flip-flop, and emulates the line-range (comma) operator |
351 | of B<sed>, B<awk>, and various editors. Each ".." operator maintains its |
352 | own boolean state. It is false as long as its left operand is false. |
353 | Once the left operand is true, the range operator stays true until the |
354 | right operand is true, I<AFTER> which the range operator becomes false |
355 | again. (It doesn't become false till the next time the range operator is |
356 | evaluated. It can test the right operand and become false on the same |
357 | evaluation it became true (as in B<awk>), but it still returns true once. |
358 | If you don't want it to test the right operand till the next evaluation |
359 | (as in B<sed>), use three dots ("...") instead of two.) The right |
360 | operand is not evaluated while the operator is in the "false" state, and |
361 | the left operand is not evaluated while the operator is in the "true" |
362 | state. The precedence is a little lower than || and &&. The value |
363 | returned is either the null string for false, or a sequence number |
364 | (beginning with 1) for true. The sequence number is reset for each range |
365 | encountered. The final sequence number in a range has the string "E0" |
366 | appended to it, which doesn't affect its numeric value, but gives you |
367 | something to search for if you want to exclude the endpoint. You can |
368 | exclude the beginning point by waiting for the sequence number to be |
369 | greater than 1. If either operand of scalar ".." is a numeric literal, |
370 | that operand is implicitly compared to the C<$.> variable, the current |
371 | line number. Examples: |
372 | |
373 | As a scalar operator: |
374 | |
375 | if (101 .. 200) { print; } # print 2nd hundred lines |
376 | next line if (1 .. /^$/); # skip header lines |
377 | s/^/> / if (/^$/ .. eof()); # quote body |
378 | |
379 | As a list operator: |
380 | |
381 | for (101 .. 200) { print; } # print $_ 100 times |
382 | @foo = @foo[$[ .. $#foo]; # an expensive no-op |
383 | @foo = @foo[$#foo-4 .. $#foo]; # slice last 5 items |
384 | |
385 | The range operator (in a list context) makes use of the magical |
386 | autoincrement algorithm if the operaands are strings. You |
387 | can say |
388 | |
389 | @alphabet = ('A' .. 'Z'); |
390 | |
391 | to get all the letters of the alphabet, or |
392 | |
393 | $hexdigit = (0 .. 9, 'a' .. 'f')[$num & 15]; |
394 | |
395 | to get a hexadecimal digit, or |
396 | |
397 | @z2 = ('01' .. '31'); print $z2[$mday]; |
398 | |
399 | to get dates with leading zeros. If the final value specified is not |
400 | in the sequence that the magical increment would produce, the sequence |
401 | goes until the next value would be longer than the final value |
402 | specified. |
403 | |
404 | =head2 Conditional Operator |
405 | |
406 | Ternary "?:" is the conditional operator, just as in C. It works much |
407 | like an if-then-else. If the argument before the ? is true, the |
408 | argument before the : is returned, otherwise the argument after the : |
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409 | is returned. For example: |
410 | |
411 | printf "I have %d dog%s.\n", $n, |
412 | ($n == 1) ? '' : "s"; |
413 | |
414 | Scalar or list context propagates downward into the 2nd |
415 | or 3rd argument, whichever is selected. |
416 | |
417 | $a = $ok ? $b : $c; # get a scalar |
418 | @a = $ok ? @b : @c; # get an array |
419 | $a = $ok ? @b : @c; # oops, that's just a count! |
420 | |
421 | The operator may be assigned to if both the 2nd and 3rd arguments are |
422 | legal lvalues (meaning that you can assign to them): |
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423 | |
424 | ($a_or_b ? $a : $b) = $c; |
425 | |
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426 | This is not necessarily guaranteed to contribute to the readability of your program. |
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427 | |
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428 | =head2 Assignment Operators |
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429 | |
430 | "=" is the ordinary assignment operator. |
431 | |
432 | Assignment operators work as in C. That is, |
433 | |
434 | $a += 2; |
435 | |
436 | is equivalent to |
437 | |
438 | $a = $a + 2; |
439 | |
440 | although without duplicating any side effects that dereferencing the lvalue |
441 | might trigger, such as from tie(). Other assignment operators work similarly. |
442 | The following are recognized: |
443 | |
444 | **= += *= &= <<= &&= |
445 | -= /= |= >>= ||= |
446 | .= %= ^= |
447 | x= |
448 | |
449 | Note that while these are grouped by family, they all have the precedence |
450 | of assignment. |
451 | |
452 | Unlike in C, the assignment operator produces a valid lvalue. Modifying |
453 | an assignment is equivalent to doing the assignment and then modifying |
454 | the variable that was assigned to. This is useful for modifying |
455 | a copy of something, like this: |
456 | |
457 | ($tmp = $global) =~ tr [A-Z] [a-z]; |
458 | |
459 | Likewise, |
460 | |
461 | ($a += 2) *= 3; |
462 | |
463 | is equivalent to |
464 | |
465 | $a += 2; |
466 | $a *= 3; |
467 | |
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468 | =head2 Comma Operator |
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469 | |
470 | Binary "," is the comma operator. In a scalar context it evaluates |
471 | its left argument, throws that value away, then evaluates its right |
472 | argument and returns that value. This is just like C's comma operator. |
473 | |
474 | In a list context, it's just the list argument separator, and inserts |
475 | both its arguments into the list. |
476 | |
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477 | The => digraph is mostly just a synonym for the comma operator. It's useful for |
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478 | documenting arguments that come in pairs. As of release 5.001, it also forces |
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479 | any word to the left of it to be interpreted as a string. |
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480 | |
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481 | =head2 List Operators (Rightward) |
482 | |
483 | On the right side of a list operator, it has very low precedence, |
484 | such that it controls all comma-separated expressions found there. |
485 | The only operators with lower precedence are the logical operators |
486 | "and", "or", and "not", which may be used to evaluate calls to list |
487 | operators without the need for extra parentheses: |
488 | |
489 | open HANDLE, "filename" |
490 | or die "Can't open: $!\n"; |
491 | |
492 | See also discussion of list operators in L<List Operators (Leftward)>. |
493 | |
494 | =head2 Logical Not |
495 | |
496 | Unary "not" returns the logical negation of the expression to its right. |
497 | It's the equivalent of "!" except for the very low precedence. |
498 | |
499 | =head2 Logical And |
500 | |
501 | Binary "and" returns the logical conjunction of the two surrounding |
502 | expressions. It's equivalent to && except for the very low |
503 | precedence. This means that it short-circuits: i.e. the right |
504 | expression is evaluated only if the left expression is true. |
505 | |
506 | =head2 Logical or and Exclusive Or |
507 | |
508 | Binary "or" returns the logical disjunction of the two surrounding |
509 | expressions. It's equivalent to || except for the very low |
510 | precedence. This means that it short-circuits: i.e. the right |
511 | expression is evaluated only if the left expression is false. |
512 | |
513 | Binary "xor" returns the exclusive-OR of the two surrounding expressions. |
514 | It cannot short circuit, of course. |
515 | |
516 | =head2 C Operators Missing From Perl |
517 | |
518 | Here is what C has that Perl doesn't: |
519 | |
520 | =over 8 |
521 | |
522 | =item unary & |
523 | |
524 | Address-of operator. (But see the "\" operator for taking a reference.) |
525 | |
526 | =item unary * |
527 | |
528 | Dereference-address operator. (Perl's prefix dereferencing |
529 | operators are typed: $, @, %, and &.) |
530 | |
531 | =item (TYPE) |
532 | |
533 | Type casting operator. |
534 | |
535 | =back |
536 | |
537 | =head2 Quote and Quotelike Operators |
538 | |
539 | While we usually think of quotes as literal values, in Perl they |
540 | function as operators, providing various kinds of interpolating and |
541 | pattern matching capabilities. Perl provides customary quote characters |
542 | for these behaviors, but also provides a way for you to choose your |
543 | quote character for any of them. In the following table, a C<{}> represents |
544 | any pair of delimiters you choose. Non-bracketing delimiters use |
545 | the same character fore and aft, but the 4 sorts of brackets |
546 | (round, angle, square, curly) will all nest. |
547 | |
548 | Customary Generic Meaning Interpolates |
549 | '' q{} Literal no |
550 | "" qq{} Literal yes |
551 | `` qx{} Command yes |
552 | qw{} Word list no |
553 | // m{} Pattern match yes |
554 | s{}{} Substitution yes |
555 | tr{}{} Translation no |
556 | |
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557 | For constructs that do interpolation, variables beginning with "C<$>" or "C<@>" |
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558 | are interpolated, as are the following sequences: |
559 | |
560 | \t tab |
561 | \n newline |
562 | \r return |
563 | \f form feed |
564 | \v vertical tab, whatever that is |
565 | \b backspace |
566 | \a alarm (bell) |
567 | \e escape |
568 | \033 octal char |
569 | \x1b hex char |
570 | \c[ control char |
571 | \l lowercase next char |
572 | \u uppercase next char |
573 | \L lowercase till \E |
574 | \U uppercase till \E |
575 | \E end case modification |
576 | \Q quote regexp metacharacters till \E |
577 | |
578 | Patterns are subject to an additional level of interpretation as a |
579 | regular expression. This is done as a second pass, after variables are |
580 | interpolated, so that regular expressions may be incorporated into the |
581 | pattern from the variables. If this is not what you want, use C<\Q> to |
582 | interpolate a variable literally. |
583 | |
584 | Apart from the above, there are no multiple levels of interpolation. In |
585 | particular, contrary to the expectations of shell programmers, backquotes |
586 | do I<NOT> interpolate within double quotes, nor do single quotes impede |
587 | evaluation of variables when used within double quotes. |
588 | |
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589 | =head2 Regexp Quotelike Operators |
590 | |
591 | Here are the quotelike operators that apply to pattern |
592 | matching and related activities. |
593 | |
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594 | =over 8 |
595 | |
596 | =item ?PATTERN? |
597 | |
598 | This is just like the C</pattern/> search, except that it matches only |
599 | once between calls to the reset() operator. This is a useful |
600 | optimization when you only want to see the first occurrence of |
601 | something in each file of a set of files, for instance. Only C<??> |
602 | patterns local to the current package are reset. |
603 | |
604 | This usage is vaguely deprecated, and may be removed in some future |
605 | version of Perl. |
606 | |
607 | =item m/PATTERN/gimosx |
608 | |
609 | =item /PATTERN/gimosx |
610 | |
611 | Searches a string for a pattern match, and in a scalar context returns |
612 | true (1) or false (''). If no string is specified via the C<=~> or |
613 | C<!~> operator, the $_ string is searched. (The string specified with |
614 | C<=~> need not be an lvalue--it may be the result of an expression |
615 | evaluation, but remember the C<=~> binds rather tightly.) See also |
616 | L<perlre>. |
617 | |
618 | Options are: |
619 | |
620 | g Match globally, i.e. find all occurrences. |
621 | i Do case-insensitive pattern matching. |
622 | m Treat string as multiple lines. |
623 | o Only compile pattern once. |
624 | s Treat string as single line. |
625 | x Use extended regular expressions. |
626 | |
627 | If "/" is the delimiter then the initial C<m> is optional. With the C<m> |
628 | you can use any pair of non-alphanumeric, non-whitespace characters as |
629 | delimiters. This is particularly useful for matching Unix path names |
630 | that contain "/", to avoid LTS (leaning toothpick syndrome). |
631 | |
632 | PATTERN may contain variables, which will be interpolated (and the |
633 | pattern recompiled) every time the pattern search is evaluated. (Note |
634 | that C<$)> and C<$|> might not be interpolated because they look like |
635 | end-of-string tests.) If you want such a pattern to be compiled only |
636 | once, add a C</o> after the trailing delimiter. This avoids expensive |
637 | run-time recompilations, and is useful when the value you are |
638 | interpolating won't change over the life of the script. However, mentioning |
639 | C</o> constitutes a promise that you won't change the variables in the pattern. |
640 | If you change them, Perl won't even notice. |
641 | |
4633a7c4 |
642 | If the PATTERN evaluates to a null string, the last |
643 | successfully executed regular expression is used instead. |
a0d0e21e |
644 | |
645 | If used in a context that requires a list value, a pattern match returns a |
646 | list consisting of the subexpressions matched by the parentheses in the |
647 | pattern, i.e. ($1, $2, $3...). (Note that here $1 etc. are also set, and |
648 | that this differs from Perl 4's behavior.) If the match fails, a null |
649 | array is returned. If the match succeeds, but there were no parentheses, |
650 | a list value of (1) is returned. |
651 | |
652 | Examples: |
653 | |
654 | open(TTY, '/dev/tty'); |
655 | <TTY> =~ /^y/i && foo(); # do foo if desired |
656 | |
657 | if (/Version: *([0-9.]*)/) { $version = $1; } |
658 | |
659 | next if m#^/usr/spool/uucp#; |
660 | |
661 | # poor man's grep |
662 | $arg = shift; |
663 | while (<>) { |
664 | print if /$arg/o; # compile only once |
665 | } |
666 | |
667 | if (($F1, $F2, $Etc) = ($foo =~ /^(\S+)\s+(\S+)\s*(.*)/)) |
668 | |
669 | This last example splits $foo into the first two words and the |
670 | remainder of the line, and assigns those three fields to $F1, $F2 and |
671 | $Etc. The conditional is true if any variables were assigned, i.e. if |
672 | the pattern matched. |
673 | |
674 | The C</g> modifier specifies global pattern matching--that is, matching |
675 | as many times as possible within the string. How it behaves depends on |
676 | the context. In a list context, it returns a list of all the |
677 | substrings matched by all the parentheses in the regular expression. |
678 | If there are no parentheses, it returns a list of all the matched |
679 | strings, as if there were parentheses around the whole pattern. |
680 | |
681 | In a scalar context, C<m//g> iterates through the string, returning TRUE |
682 | each time it matches, and FALSE when it eventually runs out of |
683 | matches. (In other words, it remembers where it left off last time and |
684 | restarts the search at that point. You can actually find the current |
685 | match position of a string using the pos() function--see L<perlfunc>.) |
686 | If you modify the string in any way, the match position is reset to the |
687 | beginning. Examples: |
688 | |
689 | # list context |
690 | ($one,$five,$fifteen) = (`uptime` =~ /(\d+\.\d+)/g); |
691 | |
692 | # scalar context |
693 | $/ = ""; $* = 1; # $* deprecated in Perl 5 |
694 | while ($paragraph = <>) { |
695 | while ($paragraph =~ /[a-z]['")]*[.!?]+['")]*\s/g) { |
696 | $sentences++; |
697 | } |
698 | } |
699 | print "$sentences\n"; |
700 | |
701 | =item q/STRING/ |
702 | |
703 | =item C<'STRING'> |
704 | |
705 | A single-quoted, literal string. Backslashes are ignored, unless |
706 | followed by the delimiter or another backslash, in which case the |
707 | delimiter or backslash is interpolated. |
708 | |
709 | $foo = q!I said, "You said, 'She said it.'"!; |
710 | $bar = q('This is it.'); |
711 | |
712 | =item qq/STRING/ |
713 | |
714 | =item "STRING" |
715 | |
716 | A double-quoted, interpolated string. |
717 | |
718 | $_ .= qq |
719 | (*** The previous line contains the naughty word "$1".\n) |
720 | if /(tcl|rexx|python)/; # :-) |
721 | |
722 | =item qx/STRING/ |
723 | |
724 | =item `STRING` |
725 | |
726 | A string which is interpolated and then executed as a system command. |
727 | The collected standard output of the command is returned. In scalar |
728 | context, it comes back as a single (potentially multi-line) string. |
729 | In list context, returns a list of lines (however you've defined lines |
730 | with $/ or $INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR). |
731 | |
732 | $today = qx{ date }; |
733 | |
734 | See L<I/O Operators> for more discussion. |
735 | |
736 | =item qw/STRING/ |
737 | |
738 | Returns a list of the words extracted out of STRING, using embedded |
739 | whitespace as the word delimiters. It is exactly equivalent to |
740 | |
741 | split(' ', q/STRING/); |
742 | |
743 | Some frequently seen examples: |
744 | |
745 | use POSIX qw( setlocale localeconv ) |
746 | @EXPORT = qw( foo bar baz ); |
747 | |
748 | =item s/PATTERN/REPLACEMENT/egimosx |
749 | |
750 | Searches a string for a pattern, and if found, replaces that pattern |
751 | with the replacement text and returns the number of substitutions |
752 | made. Otherwise it returns false (0). |
753 | |
754 | If no string is specified via the C<=~> or C<!~> operator, the C<$_> |
755 | variable is searched and modified. (The string specified with C<=~> must |
756 | be a scalar variable, an array element, a hash element, or an assignment |
757 | to one of those, i.e. an lvalue.) |
758 | |
759 | If the delimiter chosen is single quote, no variable interpolation is |
760 | done on either the PATTERN or the REPLACEMENT. Otherwise, if the |
761 | PATTERN contains a $ that looks like a variable rather than an |
762 | end-of-string test, the variable will be interpolated into the pattern |
763 | at run-time. If you only want the pattern compiled once the first time |
764 | the variable is interpolated, use the C</o> option. If the pattern |
4633a7c4 |
765 | evaluates to a null string, the last successfully executed regular |
a0d0e21e |
766 | expression is used instead. See L<perlre> for further explanation on these. |
767 | |
768 | Options are: |
769 | |
770 | e Evaluate the right side as an expression. |
771 | g Replace globally, i.e. all occurrences. |
772 | i Do case-insensitive pattern matching. |
773 | m Treat string as multiple lines. |
774 | o Only compile pattern once. |
775 | s Treat string as single line. |
776 | x Use extended regular expressions. |
777 | |
778 | Any non-alphanumeric, non-whitespace delimiter may replace the |
779 | slashes. If single quotes are used, no interpretation is done on the |
780 | replacement string (the C</e> modifier overrides this, however). If |
781 | backquotes are used, the replacement string is a command to execute |
782 | whose output will be used as the actual replacement text. If the |
783 | PATTERN is delimited by bracketing quotes, the REPLACEMENT has its own |
784 | pair of quotes, which may or may not be bracketing quotes, e.g. |
785 | C<s(foo)(bar)> or C<sE<lt>fooE<gt>/bar/>. A C</e> will cause the |
786 | replacement portion to be interpreter as a full-fledged Perl expression |
787 | and eval()ed right then and there. It is, however, syntax checked at |
788 | compile-time. |
789 | |
790 | Examples: |
791 | |
792 | s/\bgreen\b/mauve/g; # don't change wintergreen |
793 | |
794 | $path =~ s|/usr/bin|/usr/local/bin|; |
795 | |
796 | s/Login: $foo/Login: $bar/; # run-time pattern |
797 | |
798 | ($foo = $bar) =~ s/this/that/; |
799 | |
800 | $count = ($paragraph =~ s/Mister\b/Mr./g); |
801 | |
802 | $_ = 'abc123xyz'; |
803 | s/\d+/$&*2/e; # yields 'abc246xyz' |
804 | s/\d+/sprintf("%5d",$&)/e; # yields 'abc 246xyz' |
805 | s/\w/$& x 2/eg; # yields 'aabbcc 224466xxyyzz' |
806 | |
807 | s/%(.)/$percent{$1}/g; # change percent escapes; no /e |
808 | s/%(.)/$percent{$1} || $&/ge; # expr now, so /e |
809 | s/^=(\w+)/&pod($1)/ge; # use function call |
810 | |
811 | # /e's can even nest; this will expand |
812 | # simple embedded variables in $_ |
813 | s/(\$\w+)/$1/eeg; |
814 | |
815 | # Delete C comments. |
816 | $program =~ s { |
4633a7c4 |
817 | /\* # Match the opening delimiter. |
818 | .*? # Match a minimal number of characters. |
819 | \*/ # Match the closing delimiter. |
a0d0e21e |
820 | } []gsx; |
821 | |
822 | s/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/$1/; # trim white space |
823 | |
824 | s/([^ ]*) *([^ ]*)/$2 $1/; # reverse 1st two fields |
825 | |
826 | Note the use of $ instead of \ in the last example. Unlike |
827 | B<sed>, we only use the \<I<digit>> form in the left hand side. |
828 | Anywhere else it's $<I<digit>>. |
829 | |
830 | Occasionally, you can't just use a C</g> to get all the changes |
831 | to occur. Here are two common cases: |
832 | |
833 | # put commas in the right places in an integer |
834 | 1 while s/(.*\d)(\d\d\d)/$1,$2/g; # perl4 |
835 | 1 while s/(\d)(\d\d\d)(?!\d)/$1,$2/g; # perl5 |
836 | |
837 | # expand tabs to 8-column spacing |
838 | 1 while s/\t+/' ' x (length($&)*8 - length($`)%8)/e; |
839 | |
840 | |
841 | =item tr/SEARCHLIST/REPLACEMENTLIST/cds |
842 | |
843 | =item y/SEARCHLIST/REPLACEMENTLIST/cds |
844 | |
845 | Translates all occurrences of the characters found in the search list |
846 | with the corresponding character in the replacement list. It returns |
847 | the number of characters replaced or deleted. If no string is |
848 | specified via the =~ or !~ operator, the $_ string is translated. (The |
849 | string specified with =~ must be a scalar variable, an array element, |
850 | or an assignment to one of those, i.e. an lvalue.) For B<sed> devotees, |
851 | C<y> is provided as a synonym for C<tr>. If the SEARCHLIST is |
852 | delimited by bracketing quotes, the REPLACEMENTLIST has its own pair of |
853 | quotes, which may or may not be bracketing quotes, e.g. C<tr[A-Z][a-z]> |
854 | or C<tr(+-*/)/ABCD/>. |
855 | |
856 | Options: |
857 | |
858 | c Complement the SEARCHLIST. |
859 | d Delete found but unreplaced characters. |
860 | s Squash duplicate replaced characters. |
861 | |
862 | If the C</c> modifier is specified, the SEARCHLIST character set is |
863 | complemented. If the C</d> modifier is specified, any characters specified |
864 | by SEARCHLIST not found in REPLACEMENTLIST are deleted. (Note |
865 | that this is slightly more flexible than the behavior of some B<tr> |
866 | programs, which delete anything they find in the SEARCHLIST, period.) |
867 | If the C</s> modifier is specified, sequences of characters that were |
868 | translated to the same character are squashed down to a single instance of the |
869 | character. |
870 | |
871 | If the C</d> modifier is used, the REPLACEMENTLIST is always interpreted |
872 | exactly as specified. Otherwise, if the REPLACEMENTLIST is shorter |
873 | than the SEARCHLIST, the final character is replicated till it is long |
874 | enough. If the REPLACEMENTLIST is null, the SEARCHLIST is replicated. |
875 | This latter is useful for counting characters in a class or for |
876 | squashing character sequences in a class. |
877 | |
878 | Examples: |
879 | |
880 | $ARGV[1] =~ tr/A-Z/a-z/; # canonicalize to lower case |
881 | |
882 | $cnt = tr/*/*/; # count the stars in $_ |
883 | |
884 | $cnt = $sky =~ tr/*/*/; # count the stars in $sky |
885 | |
886 | $cnt = tr/0-9//; # count the digits in $_ |
887 | |
888 | tr/a-zA-Z//s; # bookkeeper -> bokeper |
889 | |
890 | ($HOST = $host) =~ tr/a-z/A-Z/; |
891 | |
892 | tr/a-zA-Z/ /cs; # change non-alphas to single space |
893 | |
894 | tr [\200-\377] |
895 | [\000-\177]; # delete 8th bit |
896 | |
748a9306 |
897 | If multiple translations are given for a character, only the first one is used: |
898 | |
899 | tr/AAA/XYZ/ |
900 | |
901 | will translate any A to X. |
902 | |
a0d0e21e |
903 | Note that because the translation table is built at compile time, neither |
904 | the SEARCHLIST nor the REPLACEMENTLIST are subjected to double quote |
905 | interpolation. That means that if you want to use variables, you must use |
906 | an eval(): |
907 | |
908 | eval "tr/$oldlist/$newlist/"; |
909 | die $@ if $@; |
910 | |
911 | eval "tr/$oldlist/$newlist/, 1" or die $@; |
912 | |
913 | =back |
914 | |
915 | =head2 I/O Operators |
916 | |
917 | There are several I/O operators you should know about. |
918 | A string is enclosed by backticks (grave accents) first undergoes |
919 | variable substitution just like a double quoted string. It is then |
920 | interpreted as a command, and the output of that command is the value |
921 | of the pseudo-literal, like in a shell. In a scalar context, a single |
922 | string consisting of all the output is returned. In a list context, |
923 | a list of values is returned, one for each line of output. (You can |
924 | set C<$/> to use a different line terminator.) The command is executed |
925 | each time the pseudo-literal is evaluated. The status value of the |
926 | command is returned in C<$?> (see L<perlvar> for the interpretation |
927 | of C<$?>). Unlike in B<csh>, no translation is done on the return |
928 | data--newlines remain newlines. Unlike in any of the shells, single |
929 | quotes do not hide variable names in the command from interpretation. |
930 | To pass a $ through to the shell you need to hide it with a backslash. |
cb1a09d0 |
931 | The generalized form of backticks is C<qx//>. (Because backticks |
932 | always undergo shell expansion as well, see L<perlsec> for |
933 | security concerns.) |
a0d0e21e |
934 | |
935 | Evaluating a filehandle in angle brackets yields the next line from |
748a9306 |
936 | that file (newline included, so it's never false until end of file, at |
937 | which time an undefined value is returned). Ordinarily you must assign |
938 | that value to a variable, but there is one situation where an automatic |
a0d0e21e |
939 | assignment happens. I<If and ONLY if> the input symbol is the only |
940 | thing inside the conditional of a C<while> loop, the value is |
748a9306 |
941 | automatically assigned to the variable C<$_>. The assigned value is |
942 | then tested to see if it is defined. (This may seem like an odd thing |
943 | to you, but you'll use the construct in almost every Perl script you |
944 | write.) Anyway, the following lines are equivalent to each other: |
a0d0e21e |
945 | |
748a9306 |
946 | while (defined($_ = <STDIN>)) { print; } |
a0d0e21e |
947 | while (<STDIN>) { print; } |
948 | for (;<STDIN>;) { print; } |
748a9306 |
949 | print while defined($_ = <STDIN>); |
a0d0e21e |
950 | print while <STDIN>; |
951 | |
952 | The filehandles STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR are predefined. (The |
953 | filehandles C<stdin>, C<stdout> and C<stderr> will also work except in |
954 | packages, where they would be interpreted as local identifiers rather |
955 | than global.) Additional filehandles may be created with the open() |
cb1a09d0 |
956 | function. See L<perlfunc/open()> for details on this. |
a0d0e21e |
957 | |
958 | If a <FILEHANDLE> is used in a context that is looking for a list, a |
959 | list consisting of all the input lines is returned, one line per list |
960 | element. It's easy to make a I<LARGE> data space this way, so use with |
961 | care. |
962 | |
963 | The null filehandle <> is special and can be used to emulate the |
964 | behavior of B<sed> and B<awk>. Input from <> comes either from |
965 | standard input, or from each file listed on the command line. Here's |
966 | how it works: the first time <> is evaluated, the @ARGV array is |
967 | checked, and if it is null, C<$ARGV[0]> is set to "-", which when opened |
968 | gives you standard input. The @ARGV array is then processed as a list |
969 | of filenames. The loop |
970 | |
971 | while (<>) { |
972 | ... # code for each line |
973 | } |
974 | |
975 | is equivalent to the following Perl-like pseudo code: |
976 | |
977 | unshift(@ARGV, '-') if $#ARGV < $[; |
978 | while ($ARGV = shift) { |
979 | open(ARGV, $ARGV); |
980 | while (<ARGV>) { |
981 | ... # code for each line |
982 | } |
983 | } |
984 | |
985 | except that it isn't so cumbersome to say, and will actually work. It |
986 | really does shift array @ARGV and put the current filename into variable |
987 | $ARGV. It also uses filehandle I<ARGV> internally--<> is just a synonym |
988 | for <ARGV>, which is magical. (The pseudo code above doesn't work |
989 | because it treats <ARGV> as non-magical.) |
990 | |
991 | You can modify @ARGV before the first <> as long as the array ends up |
992 | containing the list of filenames you really want. Line numbers (C<$.>) |
993 | continue as if the input were one big happy file. (But see example |
994 | under eof() for how to reset line numbers on each file.) |
995 | |
996 | If you want to set @ARGV to your own list of files, go right ahead. If |
997 | you want to pass switches into your script, you can use one of the |
998 | Getopts modules or put a loop on the front like this: |
999 | |
1000 | while ($_ = $ARGV[0], /^-/) { |
1001 | shift; |
1002 | last if /^--$/; |
1003 | if (/^-D(.*)/) { $debug = $1 } |
1004 | if (/^-v/) { $verbose++ } |
1005 | ... # other switches |
1006 | } |
1007 | while (<>) { |
1008 | ... # code for each line |
1009 | } |
1010 | |
1011 | The <> symbol will return FALSE only once. If you call it again after |
1012 | this it will assume you are processing another @ARGV list, and if you |
1013 | haven't set @ARGV, will input from STDIN. |
1014 | |
1015 | If the string inside the angle brackets is a reference to a scalar |
1016 | variable (e.g. <$foo>), then that variable contains the name of the |
cb1a09d0 |
1017 | filehandle to input from, or a reference to the same. For example: |
1018 | |
1019 | $fh = \*STDIN; |
1020 | $line = <$fh>; |
a0d0e21e |
1021 | |
cb1a09d0 |
1022 | If the string inside angle brackets is not a filehandle or a scalar |
1023 | variable containing a filehandle name or reference, then it is interpreted |
4633a7c4 |
1024 | as a filename pattern to be globbed, and either a list of filenames or the |
1025 | next filename in the list is returned, depending on context. One level of |
1026 | $ interpretation is done first, but you can't say C<E<lt>$fooE<gt>> |
1027 | because that's an indirect filehandle as explained in the previous |
1028 | paragraph. In older version of Perl, programmers would insert curly |
1029 | brackets to force interpretation as a filename glob: C<E<lt>${foo}E<gt>>. |
1030 | These days, it's consdired cleaner to call the internal function directly |
1031 | as C<glob($foo)>, which is probably the right way to have done it in the |
1032 | first place.) Example: |
a0d0e21e |
1033 | |
1034 | while (<*.c>) { |
1035 | chmod 0644, $_; |
1036 | } |
1037 | |
1038 | is equivalent to |
1039 | |
1040 | open(FOO, "echo *.c | tr -s ' \t\r\f' '\\012\\012\\012\\012'|"); |
1041 | while (<FOO>) { |
1042 | chop; |
1043 | chmod 0644, $_; |
1044 | } |
1045 | |
1046 | In fact, it's currently implemented that way. (Which means it will not |
1047 | work on filenames with spaces in them unless you have csh(1) on your |
1048 | machine.) Of course, the shortest way to do the above is: |
1049 | |
1050 | chmod 0644, <*.c>; |
1051 | |
1052 | Because globbing invokes a shell, it's often faster to call readdir() yourself |
1053 | and just do your own grep() on the filenames. Furthermore, due to its current |
1054 | implementation of using a shell, the glob() routine may get "Arg list too |
1055 | long" errors (unless you've installed tcsh(1L) as F</bin/csh>). |
1056 | |
4633a7c4 |
1057 | A glob only evaluates its (embedded) argument when it is starting a new |
1058 | list. All values must be read before it will start over. In a list |
1059 | context this isn't important, because you automatically get them all |
1060 | anyway. In a scalar context, however, the operator returns the next value |
1061 | each time it is called, or a FALSE value if you've just run out. Again, |
1062 | FALSE is returned only once. So if you're expecting a single value from |
1063 | a glob, it is much better to say |
1064 | |
1065 | ($file) = <blurch*>; |
1066 | |
1067 | than |
1068 | |
1069 | $file = <blurch*>; |
1070 | |
1071 | because the latter will alternate between returning a filename and |
1072 | returning FALSE. |
1073 | |
1074 | It you're trying to do variable interpolation, it's definitely better |
1075 | to use the glob() function, because the older notation can cause people |
1076 | to become confused with the indirect filehandle notatin. |
1077 | |
1078 | @files = glob("$dir/*.[ch]"); |
1079 | @files = glob($files[$i]); |
1080 | |
a0d0e21e |
1081 | =head2 Constant Folding |
1082 | |
1083 | Like C, Perl does a certain amount of expression evaluation at |
1084 | compile time, whenever it determines that all of the arguments to an |
1085 | operator are static and have no side effects. In particular, string |
1086 | concatenation happens at compile time between literals that don't do |
1087 | variable substitution. Backslash interpretation also happens at |
1088 | compile time. You can say |
1089 | |
1090 | 'Now is the time for all' . "\n" . |
1091 | 'good men to come to.' |
1092 | |
1093 | and this all reduces to one string internally. Likewise, if |
1094 | you say |
1095 | |
1096 | foreach $file (@filenames) { |
1097 | if (-s $file > 5 + 100 * 2**16) { ... } |
1098 | } |
1099 | |
1100 | the compiler will pre-compute the number that |
1101 | expression represents so that the interpreter |
1102 | won't have to. |
1103 | |
1104 | |
1105 | =head2 Integer arithmetic |
1106 | |
1107 | By default Perl assumes that it must do most of its arithmetic in |
1108 | floating point. But by saying |
1109 | |
1110 | use integer; |
1111 | |
1112 | you may tell the compiler that it's okay to use integer operations |
1113 | from here to the end of the enclosing BLOCK. An inner BLOCK may |
1114 | countermand this by saying |
1115 | |
1116 | no integer; |
1117 | |
1118 | which lasts until the end of that BLOCK. |
1119 | |