=head1 DESCRIPTION
-The biggest trap of all is forgetting to use the B<-w> switch; see
-L<perlrun>. The second biggest trap is not making your entire program
-runnable under C<use strict>. The third biggest trap is not reading
-the list of changes in this version of Perl; see L<perldelta>.
+The biggest trap of all is forgetting to C<use warnings> or use the B<-w>
+switch; see L<perllexwarn> and L<perlrun>. The second biggest trap is not
+making your entire program runnable under C<use strict>. The third biggest
+trap is not reading the list of changes in this version of Perl; see
+L<perldelta>.
=head2 Awk Traps
=item *
+A Perl program executes only once, not once for each input line. You can
+do an implicit loop with C<-n> or C<-p>.
+
+=item *
+
The English module, loaded via
use English;
=item *
-$E<lt>I<digit>E<gt> does not refer to fields--it refers to substrings matched
+$<I<digit>> does not refer to fields--it refers to substrings matched
by the last match pattern.
=item *
The concatenation operator is ".", not the null string. (Using the
null string would render C</pat/ /pat/> unparsable, because the third slash
would be interpreted as a division operator--the tokenizer is in fact
-slightly context sensitive for operators like "/", "?", and "E<gt>".
+slightly context sensitive for operators like "/", "?", and ">".
And in fact, "." itself can be the beginning of a number.)
=item *
The following variables work differently:
Awk Perl
- ARGC $#ARGV or scalar @ARGV
+ ARGC scalar @ARGV (compare with $#ARGV)
ARGV[0] $0
FILENAME $ARGV
FNR $. - something
=back
-=head2 C Traps
+=head2 C/C++ Traps
-Cerebral C programmers should take note of the following:
+Cerebral C and C++ programmers should take note of the following:
=over 4
=item *
-The C<break> and C<continue> keywords from C become in
-Perl C<last> and C<next>, respectively.
-Unlike in C, these do I<not> work within a C<do { } while> construct.
+The C<break> and C<continue> keywords from C become in Perl C<last>
+and C<next>, respectively. Unlike in C, these do I<not> work within a
+C<do { } while> construct. See L<perlsyn/"Loop Control">.
=item *
-There's no switch statement. (But it's easy to build one on the fly.)
+There's no switch statement. (But it's easy to build one on the fly,
+see L<perlsyn/"Basic BLOCKs and Switch Statements">)
=item *
=item *
-C<printf()> does not implement the "*" format for interpolating
-field widths, but it's trivial to use interpolation of double-quoted
-strings to achieve the same effect.
-
-=item *
-
-Comments begin with "#", not "/*".
+Comments begin with "#", not "/*" or "//". Perl may interpret C/C++
+comments as division operators, unterminated regular expressions or
+the defined-or operator.
=item *
=item *
System calls such as link(), unlink(), rename(), etc. return nonzero for
-success, not 0.
+success, not 0. (system(), however, returns zero for success.)
=item *
=item *
+A Perl program executes only once, not once for each input line. You can
+do an implicit loop with C<-n> or C<-p>.
+
+=item *
+
Backreferences in substitutions use "$" rather than "\".
=item *
The environment is not automatically made available as separate scalar
variables.
+=item *
+
+The shell's C<test> uses "=", "!=", "<" etc for string comparisons and "-eq",
+"-ne", "-lt" etc for numeric comparisons. This is the reverse of Perl, which
+uses C<eq>, C<ne>, C<lt> for string comparisons, and C<==>, C<!=> C<< < >> etc
+for numeric comparisons.
+
=back
=head2 Perl Traps
You cannot discern from mere inspection which builtins
are unary operators (like chop() and chdir())
and which are list operators (like print() and unlink()).
-(User-defined subroutines can be B<only> list operators, never
-unary ones.) See L<perlop>.
+(Unless prototyped, user-defined subroutines can B<only> be list
+operators, never unary ones.) See L<perlop> and L<perlsub>.
=item *
=item *
-The E<lt>FHE<gt> construct is not the name of the filehandle, it is a readline
+The <FH> construct is not the name of the filehandle, it is a readline
operation on that handle. The data read is assigned to $_ only if the
file read is the sole condition in a while loop:
=back
If you find an example of a conversion trap that is not listed here,
-please submit it to Bill Middleton <F<wjm@best.com>> for inclusion.
-Also note that at least some of these can be caught with B<-w>.
+please submit it to <F<perlbug@perl.org>> for inclusion.
+Also note that at least some of these can be caught with the
+C<use warnings> pragma or the B<-w> switch.
=head2 Discontinuance, Deprecation, and BugFix traps
$a=1;$b=2;$c=3;$var=4;
print "$a::$b::$c ";
print "$var::abc::xyz\n";
-
+
# perl4 prints: 1::2::3 4::abc::xyz
# perl5 prints: 3
}
# perl4 prints: Here I is!
- # perl5 dumps core (SEGV)
+ # perl5 errors: Can't "goto" into the middle of a foreach loop
=item * Discontinuance
=item * Discontinuance
+In Perl 4, if in list context the delimiters to the first argument of
+C<split()> were C<??>, the result would be placed in C<@_> as well as
+being returned. Perl 5 has more respect for your subroutine arguments.
+
+=item * Discontinuance
+
Some bugs may have been inadvertently removed. :-)
=back
String interpolation of the C<$#array> construct differs when braces
are to used around the name.
- @ = (1..3);
+ @a = (1..3);
print "${#a}";
# perl4 prints: 2
# perl4 prints: {a}
# perl5 prints: 2
+=item * Parsing
+
+When perl sees C<map {> (or C<grep {>), it has to guess whether the C<{>
+starts a BLOCK or a hash reference. If it guesses wrong, it will report
+a syntax error near the C<}> and the missing (or unexpected) comma.
+
+Use unary C<+> before C<{> on a hash reference, and unary C<+> applied
+to the first thing in a BLOCK (after C<{>), for perl to guess right all
+the time. (See L<perlfunc/map>.)
+
=back
=head2 Numerical Traps
=item * Numerical
-Formatted output and significant digits
+Formatted output and significant digits. In general, Perl 5
+tries to be more precise. For example, on a Solaris Sparc:
print 7.373504 - 0, "\n";
printf "%20.18f\n", 7.373504 - 0;
# Perl4 prints:
- 7.375039999999996141
- 7.37503999999999614
+ 7.3750399999999996141
+ 7.375039999999999614
# Perl5 prints:
7.373504
- 7.37503999999999614
+ 7.375039999999999614
+
+Notice how the first result looks better in Perl 5.
+
+Your results may vary, since your floating point formatting routines
+and even floating point format may be slightly different.
=item * Numerical
Assignment of return values from numeric equality tests
does not work in perl5 when the test evaluates to false (0).
-Logical tests now return an null, instead of 0
+Logical tests now return a null, instead of 0
$p = ($test == 1);
print $p,"\n";
Assigning C<undef> to a glob has no effect in Perl 5. In Perl 4
it undefines the associated scalar (but may have other side effects
-including SEGVs).
+including SEGVs). Perl 5 will also warn if C<undef> is assigned to a
+typeglob. (Note that assigning C<undef> to a typeglob is different
+than calling the C<undef> function on a typeglob (C<undef *foo>), which
+has quite a few effects.
+
+ $foo = "bar";
+ *foo = undef;
+ print $foo;
+
+ # perl4 prints:
+ # perl4 warns: "Use of uninitialized variable" if using -w
+ # perl5 prints: bar
+ # perl5 warns: "Undefined value assigned to typeglob" if using -w
=item * (Scalar String)
=item * (list, builtin)
-C<sprintf()> funkiness (array argument converted to scalar array count)
-This test could be added to t/op/sprintf.t
+C<sprintf()> is prototyped as ($;@), so its first argument is given scalar
+context. Thus, if passed an array, it will probably not do what you want,
+unlike Perl 4:
@z = ('%s%s', 'foo', 'bar');
$x = sprintf(@z);
- if ($x eq 'foobar') {print "ok 2\n";} else {print "not ok 2 '$x'\n";}
+ print $x;
- # perl4 prints: ok 2
- # perl5 prints: not ok 2
+ # perl4 prints: foobar
+ # perl5 prints: 3
-C<printf()> works fine, though:
+C<printf()> works the same as it did in Perl 4, though:
+ @z = ('%s%s', 'foo', 'bar');
printf STDOUT (@z);
- print "\n";
# perl4 prints: foobar
# perl5 prints: foobar
-Probably a bug.
-
=back
=head2 Precedence Traps
open(FOO || die);
# perl4 opens or dies
- # perl5 errors: Precedence problem: open FOO should be open(FOO)
+ # perl5 opens FOO, dying only if 'FOO' is false, i.e. never
=item * Precedence
}
sub doit{local($_) = shift; print "Got $_ "}
- # perl4 prints: blah blah blah
+ # perl4 prints: Got blah Got blah Got blah Got blah
# perl5 prints: infinite loop blah...
=item * Regular Expression
my($left,$right) = @_;
return sub { $_[0] =~ /$left stuff $right/o; };
}
+ $good = build_match('foo','bar');
+ $bad = build_match('baz','blarch');
+ print $good->('foo stuff bar') ? "ok\n" : "not ok\n";
+ print $bad->('baz stuff blarch') ? "ok\n" : "not ok\n";
+ print $bad->('foo stuff bar') ? "not ok\n" : "ok\n";
+
+For most builds of Perl5, this will print:
+ok
+not ok
+not ok
build_match() will always return a sub which matches the contents of
$left and $right as they were the I<first> time that build_match()
was called, not as they are in the current call.
-This is probably a bug, and may change in future versions of Perl.
-
=item * Regular Expression
If no parentheses are used in a match, Perl4 sets C<$+> to
# perl4 prints: perl4
# perl5 prints: perl5
+=item * Regular Expression
+
+Unlike in Ruby, failed matches in Perl do not reset the match variables
+($1, $2, ..., C<$`>, ...).
=back
$SIG{'TERM'} = SeeYa;
print "SIGTERM is now $SIG{'TERM'}\n";
- # perl4 prints: SIGTERM is main'SeeYa
- # perl5 prints: SIGTERM is now main::1
+ # perl4 prints: SIGTERM is now main'SeeYa
+ # perl5 prints: SIGTERM is now main::1 (and warns "Hasta la vista, baby!")
Use B<-w> to catch this one
reverse is no longer allowed as the name of a sort subroutine.
sub reverse{ print "yup "; $a <=> $b }
- print sort reverse a,b,c;
+ print sort reverse (2,1,3);
- # perl4 prints: yup yup yup yup abc
- # perl5 prints: abc
+ # perl4 prints: yup yup 123
+ # perl5 prints: 123
+ # perl5 warns (if using -w): Ambiguous call resolved as CORE::reverse()
=item * warn() won't let you specify a filehandle.
=item * (SysV)
-Under SysV OSes, C<seek()> on a file opened to append C<E<gt>E<gt>> now does
+Under SysV OSes, C<seek()> on a file opened to append C<<< >> >>> now does
the right thing w.r.t. the fopen() manpage. e.g., - When a file is opened
for append, it is impossible to overwrite information already in
the file.
print "To: someone@somewhere.com\n";
# perl4 prints: To:someone@somewhere.com
- # perl5 errors : In string, @somewhere now must be written as \@somewhere
+ # perl < 5.6.1, error : In string, @somewhere now must be written as \@somewhere
+ # perl >= 5.6.1, warning : Possible unintended interpolation of @somewhere in string
=item * Interpolation
-Double-quoted strings may no longer end with an unescaped $ or @.
+Double-quoted strings may no longer end with an unescaped $.
$foo = "foo$";
- $bar = "bar@";
- print "foo is $foo, bar is $bar\n";
+ print "foo is $foo\n";
- # perl4 prints: foo is foo$, bar is bar@
+ # perl4 prints: foo is foo$
# perl5 errors: Final $ should be \$ or $name
Note: perl5 DOES NOT error on the terminating @ in $bar
=item * Interpolation
-The construct "this is $$x" used to interpolate the pid at that
-point, but now apparently tries to dereference $x. C<$$> by itself still
-works fine, however.
+The construct "this is $$x" used to interpolate the pid at that point, but
+now tries to dereference $x. C<$$> by itself still works fine, however.
+ $s = "a reference";
+ $x = *s;
print "this is $$x\n";
# perl4 prints: this is XXXx (XXX is the current pid)
- # perl5 prints: this is
+ # perl5 prints: this is a reference
=item * Interpolation
=item * Interpolation
-You also have to be careful about array references.
+You also have to be careful about array and hash brackets during
+interpolation.
+
+ print "$foo["
+
+ perl 4 prints: [
+ perl 5 prints: syntax error
print "$foo{"
perl 4 prints: {
perl 5 prints: syntax error
+Perl 5 is expecting to find an index or key name following the respective
+brackets, as well as an ending bracket of the appropriate type. In order
+to mimic the behavior of Perl 4, you must escape the bracket like so.
+
+ print "$foo\[";
+ print "$foo\{";
+
=item * Interpolation
Similarly, watch out for:
- $foo = "array";
+ $foo = "baz";
print "\$$foo{bar}\n";
- # perl4 prints: $array{bar}
+ # perl4 prints: $baz{bar}
# perl5 prints: $
-Perl 5 is looking for C<$array{bar}> which doesn't exist, but perl 4 is
-happy just to expand $foo to "array" by itself. Watch out for this
+Perl 5 is looking for C<$foo{bar}> which doesn't exist, but perl 4 is
+happy just to expand $foo to "baz" by itself. Watch out for this
especially in C<eval>'s.
=item * Interpolation
=item * C<split> on empty string with LIMIT specified
- $string = '';
+ $string = '';
@list = split(/foo/, $string, 2)
Perl4 returns a one element list containing the empty string but Perl5
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