Re^2: Two simple code style advice questions

[Anonymous Monk]

in reply to Re: Two simple code style advice questions
in thread Two simple code style advice questions

It strikes me that, as a pattern, 2b works for all values of True, while 2a does not.

What does that mean?

I think they both work for all values of true, even if it isn't clear what you mean by that

[choroba]

It probably means "Using '... x condition' is not always safe":

say $_ ? "true" : "false", "a" x $_ for 0, 1, "0e0";

[Anonymous Monk]

Now what do you mean by that? What is it that you expect and how is it unsafe?

[Anonymous Monk]

The issue is that the code relies on true being represented by numeric one. While that works for numeric comparisons, it is not a safe assumption in general. So applying this construct to other kinds of tests could be dangerous.

[Anonymous Monk]

While choroba's example is elegantly expresses what I was getting at, I'd also like to point out other True values, like 3, 5 or, more entertainingly, MAXINT. >;^)

[Anonymous Monk]

Well, repeat operator repeats a number of times, its repeat operator, if you want to repeat at most once, force !!boolean