=head2 The Arrow Operator
-"C<-E<gt>>" is an infix dereference operator, just as it is in C
+"C<< -> >>" is an infix dereference operator, just as it is in C
and C++. If the right side is either a C<[...]>, C<{...}>, or a
C<(...)> subscript, then the left side must be either a hard or
symbolic reference to an array, a hash, or a subroutine respectively.
is returned. One effect of these rules is that C<-bareword> is equivalent
to C<"-bareword">.
-Unary "~" performs bitwise negation, i.e., 1's complement. For example,
-C<0666 &~ 027> is 0640. (See also L<Integer Arithmetic> and L<Bitwise
-String Operators>.)
+Unary "~" performs bitwise negation, i.e., 1's complement. For
+example, C<0666 & ~027> is 0640. (See also L<Integer Arithmetic> and
+L<Bitwise String Operators>.) Note that the width of the result is
+platform-dependent: ~0 is 32 bits wide on a 32-bit platform, but 64
+bits wide on a 64-bit platform, so if you are expecting a certain bit
+width, remember use the & operator to mask off the excess bits.
Unary "+" has no effect whatsoever, even on strings. It is useful
syntactically for separating a function name from a parenthesized expression
of operation work on some other string. The right argument is a search
pattern, substitution, or transliteration. The left argument is what is
supposed to be searched, substituted, or transliterated instead of the default
-$_. The return value indicates the success of the operation. (If the
-right argument is an expression rather than a search pattern,
+$_. When used in scalar context, the return value generally indicates the
+success of the operation. Behavior in list context depends on the particular
+operator. See L</"Regexp Quote-Like Operators"> for details.
+
+If the right argument is an expression rather than a search pattern,
substitution, or transliteration, it is interpreted as a search pattern at run
-time. This can be is less efficient than an explicit search, because the
-pattern must be compiled every time the expression is evaluated).
+time. This can be less efficient than an explicit search, because the
+pattern must be compiled every time the expression is evaluated.
Binary "!~" is just like "=~" except the return value is negated in
the logical sense.
C<$a>. If C<$b> is negative, then C<$a % $b> is C<$a> minus the
smallest multiple of C<$b> that is not less than C<$a> (i.e. the
result will be less than or equal to zero).
-Note than when C<use integer> is in scope, "%" give you direct access
+Note than when C<use integer> is in scope, "%" gives you direct access
to the modulus operator as implemented by your C compiler. This
operator is not as well defined for negative operands, but it will
execute faster.
-Binary "x" is the repetition operator. In scalar context, it
-returns a string consisting of the left operand repeated the number of
-times specified by the right operand. In list context, if the left
-operand is a list in parentheses, it repeats the list.
+Binary "x" is the repetition operator. In scalar context or if the left
+operand is not enclosed in parentheses, it returns a string consisting
+of the left operand repeated the number of times specified by the right
+operand. In list context, if the left operand is enclosed in
+parentheses, it repeats the list.
print '-' x 80; # print row of dashes
=head2 Relational Operators
-Binary "E<lt>" returns true if the left argument is numerically less than
+Binary "<" returns true if the left argument is numerically less than
the right argument.
-Binary "E<gt>" returns true if the left argument is numerically greater
+Binary ">" returns true if the left argument is numerically greater
than the right argument.
-Binary "E<lt>=" returns true if the left argument is numerically less than
+Binary "<=" returns true if the left argument is numerically less than
or equal to the right argument.
-Binary "E<gt>=" returns true if the left argument is numerically greater
+Binary ">=" returns true if the left argument is numerically greater
than or equal to the right argument.
Binary "lt" returns true if the left argument is stringwise less than
Binary "!=" returns true if the left argument is numerically not equal
to the right argument.
-Binary "E<lt>=E<gt>" returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the left
+Binary "<=>" returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the left
argument is numerically less than, equal to, or greater than the right
-argument.
+argument. If your platform supports NaNs (not-a-numbers) as numeric
+values, using them with "<=>" (or any other numeric comparison)
+returns undef.
Binary "eq" returns true if the left argument is stringwise equal to
the right argument.
Binary "ne" returns true if the left argument is stringwise not equal
to the right argument.
-Binary "cmp" returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the left argument is stringwise
-less than, equal to, or greater than the right argument.
+Binary "cmp" returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the left
+argument is stringwise less than, equal to, or greater than the right
+argument.
"lt", "le", "ge", "gt" and "cmp" use the collation (sort) order specified
by the current locale if C<use locale> is in effect. See L<perllocale>.
unlink("alpha", "beta", "gamma")
|| (gripe(), next LINE);
-Use "or" for assignment is unlikely to do what you want; see below.
+Using "or" for assignment is unlikely to do what you want; see below.
=head2 Range Operators
In list context, it's just the list argument separator, and inserts
both its arguments into the list.
-The =E<gt> digraph is mostly just a synonym for the comma operator. It's useful for
+The => digraph is mostly just a synonym for the comma operator. It's useful for
documenting arguments that come in pairs. As of release 5.001, it also forces
any word to the left of it to be interpreted as a string.
that
q{foo{bar}baz}
-
+
is the same as
'foo{bar}baz'
PATTERN may contain variables, which will be interpolated (and the
pattern recompiled) every time the pattern search is evaluated, except
-for when the delimiter is a single quote. (Note that C<$)> and C<$|>
-might not be interpolated because they look like end-of-string tests.)
+for when the delimiter is a single quote. (Note that C<$(>, C<$)>, and
+C<$|> are not interpolated because they look like end-of-string tests.)
If you want such a pattern to be compiled only once, add a C</o> after
the trailing delimiter. This avoids expensive run-time recompilations,
and is useful when the value you are interpolating won't change over
the life of the script. However, mentioning C</o> constitutes a promise
that you won't change the variables in the pattern. If you change them,
-Perl won't even notice. See also L<qr//>.
+Perl won't even notice. See also L<"qr//">.
If the PATTERN evaluates to the empty string, the last
I<successfully> matched regular expression is used instead.
You can intermix C<m//g> matches with C<m/\G.../g>, where C<\G> is a
zero-width assertion that matches the exact position where the previous
-C<m//g>, if any, left off. The C<\G> assertion is not supported without
-the C</g> modifier. (Currently, without C</g>, C<\G> behaves just like
-C<\A>, but that's accidental and may change in the future.)
+C<m//g>, if any, left off. Without the C</g> modifier, the C<\G> assertion
+still anchors at pos(), but the match is of course only attempted once.
+Using C<\G> without C</g> on a target string that has not previously had a
+C</g> match applied to it is the same as using the C<\A> assertion to match
+the beginning of the string.
Examples:
($one,$five,$fifteen) = (`uptime` =~ /(\d+\.\d+)/g);
# scalar context
- $/ = ""; $* = 1; # $* deprecated in modern perls
+ $/ = "";
while (defined($paragraph = <>)) {
while ($paragraph =~ /[a-z]['")]*[.!?]+['")]*\s/g) {
$sentences++;
print "3: '";
print $1 while /(p)/gc; print "', pos=", pos, "\n";
}
+ print "Final: '$1', pos=",pos,"\n" if /\G(.)/;
The last example should print:
1: '', pos=7
2: 'q', pos=8
3: '', pos=8
+ Final: 'q', pos=8
+
+Notice that the final match matched C<q> instead of C<p>, which a match
+without the C<\G> anchor would have done. Also note that the final match
+did not update C<pos> -- C<pos> is only updated on a C</g> match. If the
+final match did indeed match C<p>, it's a good bet that you're running an
+older (pre-5.6.0) Perl.
A useful idiom for C<lex>-like scanners is C</\G.../gc>. You can
combine several regexps like this to process a string part-by-part,
my @compiled = map qr/$_/i, @$patterns;
grep {
my $success = 0;
- foreach my $pat @compiled {
+ foreach my $pat (@compiled) {
$success = 1, last if /$pat/;
}
$success;
=item `STRING`
-A string which is (possibly) interpolated and then executed as a system
-command with C</bin/sh> or its equivalent. Shell wildcards, pipes,
-and redirections will be honored. The collected standard output of the
-command is returned; standard error is unaffected. In scalar context,
-it comes back as a single (potentially multi-line) string. In list
-context, returns a list of lines (however you've defined lines with $/
-or $INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR).
+A string which is (possibly) interpolated and then executed as a
+system command with C</bin/sh> or its equivalent. Shell wildcards,
+pipes, and redirections will be honored. The collected standard
+output of the command is returned; standard error is unaffected. In
+scalar context, it comes back as a single (potentially multi-line)
+string, or undef if the command failed. In list context, returns a
+list of lines (however you've defined lines with $/ or
+$INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR), or an empty list if the command failed.
Because backticks do not affect standard error, use shell file descriptor
syntax (assuming the shell supports this) if you care to address this.
separator character, if your shell supports that (e.g. C<;> on many Unix
shells; C<&> on the Windows NT C<cmd> shell).
+Beginning with v5.6.0, Perl will attempt to flush all files opened for
+output before starting the child process, but this may not be supported
+on some platforms (see L<perlport>). To be safe, you may need to set
+C<$|> ($AUTOFLUSH in English) or call the C<autoflush()> method of
+C<IO::Handle> on any open handles.
+
Beware that some command shells may place restrictions on the length
of the command line. You must ensure your strings don't exceed this
limit after any necessary interpolations. See the platform-specific
qw(foo bar baz)
-is exactly equivalent to the list:
+is semantically equivalent to the list:
- ('foo', 'bar', 'baz')
+ 'foo', 'bar', 'baz'
Some frequently seen examples:
A common mistake is to try to separate the words with comma or to
put comments into a multi-line C<qw>-string. For this reason, the
-B<-w> switch (that is, the C<$^W> variable) produces warnings if
-the STRING contains the "," or the "#" character.
+C<use warnings> pragma and the B<-w> switch (that is, the C<$^W> variable)
+produces warnings if the STRING contains the "," or the "#" character.
=item s/PATTERN/REPLACEMENT/egimosx
text is not evaluated as a command. If the
PATTERN is delimited by bracketing quotes, the REPLACEMENT has its own
pair of quotes, which may or may not be bracketing quotes, e.g.,
-C<s(foo)(bar)> or C<sE<lt>fooE<gt>/bar/>. A C</e> will cause the
-replacement portion to be interpreted as a full-fledged Perl expression
-and eval()ed right then and there. It is, however, syntax checked at
-compile-time.
+C<s(foo)(bar)> or C<< s<foo>/bar/ >>. A C</e> will cause the
+replacement portion to be treated as a full-fledged Perl expression
+and evaluated right then and there. It is, however, syntax checked at
+compile-time. A second C<e> modifier will cause the replacement portion
+to be C<eval>ed before being run as a Perl expression.
Examples:
# symbolic dereferencing
s/\$(\w+)/${$1}/g;
- # /e's can even nest; this will expand
- # any embedded scalar variable (including lexicals) in $_
+ # Add one to the value of any numbers in the string
+ s/(\d+)/1 + $1/eg;
+
+ # This will expand any embedded scalar variable
+ # (including lexicals) in $_ : First $1 is interpolated
+ # to the variable name, and then evaluated
s/(\$\w+)/$1/eeg;
# Delete (most) C comments.
s/([^ ]*) *([^ ]*)/$2 $1/; # reverse 1st two fields
Note the use of $ instead of \ in the last example. Unlike
-B<sed>, we use the \E<lt>I<digit>E<gt> form in only the left hand side.
-Anywhere else it's $E<lt>I<digit>E<gt>.
+B<sed>, we use the \<I<digit>> form in only the left hand side.
+Anywhere else it's $<I<digit>>.
Occasionally, you can't use just a C</g> to get all the changes
to occur that you might want. Here are two common cases:
# expand tabs to 8-column spacing
1 while s/\t+/' ' x (length($&)*8 - length($`)%8)/e;
-=item tr/SEARCHLIST/REPLACEMENTLIST/cdsUC
+=item tr/SEARCHLIST/REPLACEMENTLIST/cds
-=item y/SEARCHLIST/REPLACEMENTLIST/cdsUC
+=item y/SEARCHLIST/REPLACEMENTLIST/cds
Transliterates all occurrences of the characters found in the search list
with the corresponding character in the replacement list. It returns
its own pair of quotes, which may or may not be bracketing quotes,
e.g., C<tr[A-Z][a-z]> or C<tr(+\-*/)/ABCD/>.
+Note that C<tr> does B<not> do regular expression character classes
+such as C<\d> or C<[:lower:]>. The <tr> operator is not equivalent to
+the tr(1) utility. If you want to map strings between lower/upper
+cases, see L<perlfunc/lc> and L<perlfunc/uc>, and in general consider
+using the C<s> operator if you need regular expressions.
+
Note also that the whole range idea is rather unportable between
character sets--and even within character sets they may cause results
you probably didn't expect. A sound principle is to use only ranges
c Complement the SEARCHLIST.
d Delete found but unreplaced characters.
s Squash duplicate replaced characters.
- U Translate to/from UTF-8.
- C Translate to/from 8-bit char (octet).
If the C</c> modifier is specified, the SEARCHLIST character set
is complemented. If the C</d> modifier is specified, any characters
This latter is useful for counting characters in a class or for
squashing character sequences in a class.
-The first C</U> or C</C> modifier applies to the left side of the translation.
-The second one applies to the right side. If present, these modifiers override
-the current utf8 state.
-
Examples:
$ARGV[1] =~ tr/A-Z/a-z/; # canonicalize to lower case
tr [\200-\377]
[\000-\177]; # delete 8th bit
- tr/\0-\xFF//CU; # change Latin-1 to Unicode
- tr/\0-\x{FF}//UC; # change Unicode to Latin-1
-
If multiple transliterations are given for a character, only the
first one is used:
The first pass is finding the end of the quoted construct, whether
it be a multicharacter delimiter C<"\nEOF\n"> in the C<<<EOF>
construct, a C</> that terminates a C<qq//> construct, a C<]> which
-terminates C<qq[]> construct, or a C<E<gt>> which terminates a
-fileglob started with C<E<lt>>.
+terminates C<qq[]> construct, or a C<< > >> which terminates a
+fileglob started with C<< < >>.
When searching for single-character non-pairing delimiters, such
as C</>, combinations of C<\\> and C<\/> are skipped. However,
The only interpolation is removal of C<\> from pairs C<\\>.
-=item C<"">, C<``>, C<qq//>, C<qx//>, C<<file*globE<gt>>
+=item C<"">, C<``>, C<qq//>, C<qx//>, C<< <file*glob> >>
C<\Q>, C<\U>, C<\u>, C<\L>, C<\l> (possibly paired with C<\E>) are
converted to corresponding Perl constructs. Thus, C<"$foo\Qbaz$bar">
may be closer to the conjectural I<intention> of the writer of C<"\Q\t\E">.
Interpolated scalars and arrays are converted internally to the C<join> and
-C<.> catentation operations. Thus, C<"$foo XXX '@arr'"> becomes:
+C<.> catenation operations. Thus, C<"$foo XXX '@arr'"> becomes:
$foo . " XXX '" . (join $", @arr) . "'";
Note also that the interpolation code needs to make a decision on
where the interpolated scalar ends. For instance, whether
-C<"a $b -E<gt> {c}"> really means:
+C<< "a $b -> {c}" >> really means:
"a " . $b . " -> {c}";
It is at this step that C<\1> is begrudgingly converted to C<$1> in
the replacement text of C<s///> to correct the incorrigible
I<sed> hackers who haven't picked up the saner idiom yet. A warning
-is emitted if the B<-w> command-line flag (that is, the C<$^W> variable)
-was set.
+is emitted if the C<use warnings> pragma or the B<-w> command-line flag
+(that is, the C<$^W> variable) was set.
The lack of processing of C<\\> creates specific restrictions on
the post-processed text. If the delimiter is C</>, one cannot get
It is possible to inspect both the string given to RE engine and the
resulting finite automaton. See the arguments C<debug>/C<debugcolor>
in the C<use L<re>> pragma, as well as Perl's B<-Dr> command-line
-switch documented in L<perlrun/Switches>.
+switch documented in L<perlrun/"Command Switches">.
=item Optimization of regular expressions
while (($_ = <STDIN>) ne '0') { ... }
while (<STDIN>) { last unless $_; ... }
-In other boolean contexts, C<E<lt>I<filehandle>E<gt>> without an
-explicit C<defined> test or comparison elicit a warning if the B<-w>
+In other boolean contexts, C<< <I<filehandle>> >> without an
+explicit C<defined> test or comparison elicit a warning if the
+C<use warnings> pragma or the B<-w>
command-line switch (the C<$^W> variable) is in effect.
The filehandles STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR are predefined. (The
the open() function, amongst others. See L<perlopentut> and
L<perlfunc/open> for details on this.
-If a E<lt>FILEHANDLEE<gt> is used in a context that is looking for
+If a <FILEHANDLE> is used in a context that is looking for
a list, a list comprising all input lines is returned, one line per
list element. It's easy to grow to a rather large data space this
way, so use with care.
-E<lt>FILEHANDLEE<gt> may also be spelled C<readline(*FILEHANDLE)>.
+<FILEHANDLE> may also be spelled C<readline(*FILEHANDLE)>.
See L<perlfunc/readline>.
-The null filehandle E<lt>E<gt> is special: it can be used to emulate the
-behavior of B<sed> and B<awk>. Input from E<lt>E<gt> comes either from
+The null filehandle <> is special: it can be used to emulate the
+behavior of B<sed> and B<awk>. Input from <> comes either from
standard input, or from each file listed on the command line. Here's
-how it works: the first time E<lt>E<gt> is evaluated, the @ARGV array is
+how it works: the first time <> is evaluated, the @ARGV array is
checked, and if it is empty, C<$ARGV[0]> is set to "-", which when opened
gives you standard input. The @ARGV array is then processed as a list
of filenames. The loop
except that it isn't so cumbersome to say, and will actually work.
It really does shift the @ARGV array and put the current filename
into the $ARGV variable. It also uses filehandle I<ARGV>
-internally--E<lt>E<gt> is just a synonym for E<lt>ARGVE<gt>, which
+internally--<> is just a synonym for <ARGV>, which
is magical. (The pseudo code above doesn't work because it treats
-E<lt>ARGVE<gt> as non-magical.)
+<ARGV> as non-magical.)
-You can modify @ARGV before the first E<lt>E<gt> as long as the array ends up
+You can modify @ARGV before the first <> as long as the array ends up
containing the list of filenames you really want. Line numbers (C<$.>)
continue as though the input were one big happy file. See the example
in L<perlfunc/eof> for how to reset line numbers on each file.
# ... # code for each line
}
-The E<lt>E<gt> symbol will return C<undef> for end-of-file only once.
+The <> symbol will return C<undef> for end-of-file only once.
If you call it again after this, it will assume you are processing another
@ARGV list, and if you haven't set @ARGV, will read input from STDIN.
If angle brackets contain is a simple scalar variable (e.g.,
-E<lt>$fooE<gt>), then that variable contains the name of the
+<$foo>), then that variable contains the name of the
filehandle to input from, or its typeglob, or a reference to the
same. For example:
reference, it is interpreted as a filename pattern to be globbed, and
either a list of filenames or the next filename in the list is returned,
depending on context. This distinction is determined on syntactic
-grounds alone. That means C<E<lt>$xE<gt>> is always a readline() from
-an indirect handle, but C<E<lt>$hash{key}E<gt>> is always a glob().
+grounds alone. That means C<< <$x> >> is always a readline() from
+an indirect handle, but C<< <$hash{key}> >> is always a glob().
That's because $x is a simple scalar variable, but C<$hash{key}> is
not--it's a hash element.
One level of double-quote interpretation is done first, but you can't
-say C<E<lt>$fooE<gt>> because that's an indirect filehandle as explained
+say C<< <$foo> >> because that's an indirect filehandle as explained
in the previous paragraph. (In older versions of Perl, programmers
would insert curly brackets to force interpretation as a filename glob:
-C<E<lt>${foo}E<gt>>. These days, it's considered cleaner to call the
+C<< <${foo}> >>. These days, it's considered cleaner to call the
internal function directly as C<glob($foo)>, which is probably the right
way to have done it in the first place.) For example:
chmod 0644, $_;
}
-is equivalent to
+is roughly equivalent to:
open(FOO, "echo *.c | tr -s ' \t\r\f' '\\012\\012\\012\\012'|");
while (<FOO>) {
chmod 0644, $_;
}
-In fact, it's currently implemented that way, but this is expected
-to be made completely internal in the near future. (Which means
-it will not work on filenames with spaces in them unless you have
-csh(1) on your machine.) Of course, the shortest way to do the
-above is:
+except that the globbing is actually done internally using the standard
+C<File::Glob> extension. Of course, the shortest way to do the above is:
chmod 0644, <*.c>;
-Because globbing currently invokes a shell, it's often faster to
-call readdir() yourself and do your own grep() on the filenames.
-Furthermore, due to its current implementation of using a shell,
-the glob() routine may get "Arg list too long" errors (unless you've
-installed tcsh(1L) as F</bin/csh> or hacked your F<config.sh>).
-
A (file)glob evaluates its (embedded) argument only when it is
starting a new list. All values must be read before it will start
over. In list context, this isn't important because you automatically
get them all anyway. However, in scalar context the operator returns
-the next value each time it's called, or C
+the next value each time it's called, or C<undef> when the list has
run out. As with filehandle reads, an automatic C<defined> is
generated when the glob occurs in the test part of a C<while>,
because legal glob returns (e.g. a file called F<0>) would otherwise
The non-standard modules SSLeay::BN and Math::Pari provide
equivalent functionality (and much more) with a substantial
performance savings.
+
+=cut