Re^2: Pass array, then clear

[Anonymous Monk]

Thank you for the explanation. Do you think this is intuitive behavior when dealing with references? I'm kind of bummed about it. I'm concerned that this behavior deserves an explanation somewhere. I'm sure it's in the documentation somewhere, but I did not see anything about this in the Perl references documentation.

Maybe everyone thinks the current behavior is perfect, in that case I need to adjust my thinking.

[AnomalousMonk]

Do you think this is intuitive behavior ...? I'm concerned that this behavior deserves an explanation somewhere.

No, it's not intuitive; however, this is pretty much the way references work in any computer language. Maybe see reference, perlref, perlreftut. Perhaps also take a look at the Monastery Tutorials articles in References, and maybe also at Coping with Scoping and other articles in Variables and Scoping.

(And yes, you need to adjust your thinking :) (Update: And yes, references and aliasing have bitten me, too — many times, many, many times...)

[huck]

I will admit i have gotten bit by it before, but as soon as i realize i know what to fix. It is the same when

for my $var (@array) { $var++; }

ends up modifying the array even tho i said my $var.