Re: what's this loo code?

[pfaut]

I think whatever perl normally uses $= for is irrelevant. The idea is to use the assignment to a scalar to evaluate the array in scalar context. The anonymous array exists to evaluate the <> in list context. So, slurp the file into the anonymous array, then assign the size of the array to $= and print it.

---
print map { my ($m)=1<<hex($_)&11?' ':'';
$m.=substr('AHJPacehklnorstu',hex($_),1) }
split //,'2fde0abe76c36c914586c';

[ihb]

This is a bogus explanation I'm afraid. The anonymous array you speak of doesn't exist afaik, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. But what I'm sure of is that then assign the size of the array to $= is wrong. From perlop: "a list assignment in scalar context returns the number of elements produced by the expression on the right hand side of the assignment." What's on the LHS is irrelevant.   print scalar(($a, $b) = ('a','b','c')); # prints '3' ihb