second--glance appear to be an lvalue context may be fixed in a future
release.
-See L<perlref/"Pseudo-hashes: Using an array as a hash"> for specifics
-on how exists() acts when used on a pseudo-hash.
-
Use of a subroutine call, rather than a subroutine name, as an argument
to exists() is an error.
Returns the process id of the parent process.
+Note for Linux users: on Linux, the C functions C<getpid()> and
+C<getppid()> return different values from different threads. In order to
+be portable, this behavior is not reflected by the perl-level function
+C<getppid()>, that returns a consistent value across threads. If you want
+to call the underlying C<getppid()>, you may use the CPAN module
+C<Linux::Pid>.
+
=item getpriority WHICH,WHO
Returns the current priority for a process, a process group, or a user.
$name = getpwuid($num);
$name = getpwent();
$gid = getgrnam($name);
- $name = getgrgid($num;
+ $name = getgrgid($num);
$name = getgrent();
#etc.
Returns a random fractional number greater than or equal to C<0> and less
than the value of EXPR. (EXPR should be positive.) If EXPR is
-omitted, or a C<0>, the value C<1> is used. Automatically calls C<srand>
-unless C<srand> has already been called. See also C<srand>.
+omitted, the value C<1> is used. Currently EXPR with the value C<0> is
+also special-cased as C<1> - this has not been documented before perl 5.8.0
+and is subject to change in future versions of perl. Automatically calls
+C<srand> unless C<srand> has already been called. See also C<srand>.
Apply C<int()> to the value returned by C<rand()> if you want random
integers instead of random fractional numbers. For example,
limited control of the sort. Its rather blunt control of the
underlying algorithm may not persist into future perls, but the
ability to characterize the input or output in implementation
-independent ways quite probably will. See L</use>.
+independent ways quite probably will. See L<sort>.
Examples:
Arguments are usually formatted to be only as wide as required to
display the given value. You can override the width by putting
a number here, or get the width from the next argument (with C<*>)
-or from a specified argument (with eg C<2$>):
+or from a specified argument (with eg C<*2$>):
printf '<%s>', "a"; # prints "<a>"
printf '<%6s>', "a"; # prints "< a>"
=item precision, or maximum width
-You can specify a precision (for numeric converions) or a maximum
+You can specify a precision (for numeric conversions) or a maximum
width (for string conversions) by specifying a C<.> followed by a number.
For floating point formats, this specifies the number of decimal places
to show (the default being 6), eg:
a Perl integer (or floating-point number)', which is already the
default for Perl code.
+=item order of arguments
+
+Normally, sprintf takes the next unused argument as the value to
+format for each format specification. If the format specification
+uses C<*> to require additional arguments, these are consumed from
+the argument list in the order in which they appear in the format
+specification I<before> the value to format. Where an argument is
+specified using an explicit index, this does not affect the normal
+order for the arguments (even when the explicitly specified index
+would have been the next argument in any case).
+
+So:
+
+ printf '<%*.*s>', $a, $b, $c;
+
+would use C<$a> for the width, C<$b> for the precision and C<$c>
+as the value to format, while:
+
+ print '<%*1$.*s>', $a, $b;
+
+would use C<$a> for the width and the precision, and C<$b> as the
+value to format.
+
+Here are some more examples - beware that when using an explicit
+index, the C<$> may need to be escaped:
+
+ printf "%2\$d %d\n", 12, 34; # will print "34 12\n"
+ printf "%2\$d %d %d\n", 12, 34; # will print "34 12 34\n"
+ printf "%3\$d %d %d\n", 12, 34, 56; # will print "56 12 34\n"
+ printf "%2\$*3\$d %d\n", 12, 34, 3; # will print " 34 12\n"
+
=back
If C<use locale> is in effect, the character used for the decimal
7 size total size of file, in bytes
8 atime last access time in seconds since the epoch
9 mtime last modify time in seconds since the epoch
- 10 ctime inode change time (NOT creation time!) in seconds since the epoch
+ 10 ctime inode change time in seconds since the epoch (*)
11 blksize preferred block size for file system I/O
12 blocks actual number of blocks allocated
(The epoch was at 00:00 January 1, 1970 GMT.)
+(*) The ctime field is non-portable, in particular you cannot expect
+it to be a "creation time", see L<perlport/"Files and Filesystems">
+for details.
+
If stat is passed the special filehandle consisting of an underline, no
stat is done, but the current contents of the stat structure from the
last stat or filetest are returned. Example:
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff