perlquestion Anonymous Monk <p> Hi Monks, </p> <p> Why does a list assignment to a list in scalar context return the number of elements on the right side list, but NOT the last element of the left side list that has been assigned values? </p> <p> I know that: </p> <code> scalar((1,3,5)) #evaluates to the last element of the list --- 5 if( (5,3,0) ) #evaluates to the last element of the list --- 0, thus evaluates to FALSE $val=(5,6,7); #evaluates to the last element of the list --- 7 </code> <p> and that: </p> <code> $ret = (($i, $j, $k)=(5,6,8,9)); #evaluates to the number of elements on the right side list --- 4 if( ($k, $v) = ( 1, 0 ) ) #evaluates to the number of elements on the right side list --- 2, thus evaluates to TRUE while ( ($key, $value) = each %map ) #still evaluates to the number of elements on the right side hash </code> <p> Now check a scalar assignment to a scalar in scalar context: if( $i = 0 ) which will evaluate to the value of $i on the left side, thus evaluate to 0, thus evaluate to FALSE </p> <p> but consider an example of list assignment above: <code> if( ($k, $v) = ( 1, 0 ) ) </code> To me, it seems like it should evaluate to the value of list ($k, $v) on the left side just like $i above, thus should evaluate to the last element of list ($k, $v) --- $v, thus evaluate to 0 and at last should evaluate to --- FALSE, although I know the correct answer is it will evaluate to true. </p> <p> So, the question is: for what purpose are the designing principles of scalar assignment and list assignment both in scalar context completely different? Just for convenience of usage? Isn't that a bit confusing? </p> 18