Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Welcome to the Monastery
 
PerlMonks  

Undocumented variable?

by dpmott (Scribe)
on Sep 12, 2003 at 21:26 UTC ( [id://291192]=perlquestion: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

dpmott has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

So, I was quickly coding up a proof-of-concept script today, and I fat-fingered a line that was supposed to check the $@ variable. However, the compiler didn't catch my use of the undocumented global array @$. So I wrote some test code:
#!perl
use strict;           # need to pre-declare variables...
@$ = (1, 2, 3, 4);    # I wonder what this is?
eval { die "blah"; }; # This sets $@
print join(', ', @$); # prints '1, 2, 3, 4'
Could someone please tell me what the @$ array is, what it's used for, and/or why the compiler doesn't warn or die when I use it? It's not documented in perlvar or any reference material that I have. One of my co-workers speculated that the implementation probably reserved the glob of '$' variables, since there's the '$$' variable...

I don't mind if I get dyslexic with '$$', but '@$' should be some kind of compile-time error, IMHO.

Unless it's actually used for something? Anyone?

Thanks,
-dpmott

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Undocumented variable?
by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Sep 12, 2003 at 21:36 UTC

    Punctuation variables are exempt from stricture and perfectly legal. AFAIK @$ is not a perl global or package variable, and you are free to use it.

    Mostly seen in golf and obfu, for obvious reasons.

    After Compline,
    Zaxo

      AFAIK @$ is not a perl global or package variable
      Actually, the punctuation variables are always forced into package main for hysterical reasons, and are therefore as global (insensitive to current package, and predecalared) as things that use STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR, ARGV, ARGVOUT, ENV, or INC as part of their name.

      -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
      Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

        ARGVOUT

        This is a new one for me. What/how is that used?

        Update: Never mind, found it. Though I see I already got a reply, thanks! (and downvotes for an honest question, some people are just too funny ;~) Still, was a new one to me... ah well.


        You have moved into a dark place.
        It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
        >> the punctuation variables are always forced into package main for hysterical reasons

        Is that meant as in "behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess", or just a typo?

        :-) Rudif

      golf? What do you mean?
        "Perl Golf" is a game that monks and wizards like to play, wherein you try to come up with the solution to a problem in the fewest characters possible. It often starts from a very basic question, in order to break up the boredom of helping newbies. One can occasionally learn nifty tricks from golfing, but it's mostly just playing.

        Obfu was also mentioned, which is short for obfuscation, or the writing of intentionally hard to read code. Perl's flexibility certainly makes it possible to write extremely obfuscated code (especially when done intentionally) - click on the obfuscation link, probably near the top of this very page, for some nifty examples.

        -- Kirby

Re: Undocumented variable?
by Mr. Muskrat (Canon) on Sep 12, 2003 at 21:39 UTC

    The built-in variables documented in perlvar are a part of a declared typeglob. That means you can even do silly things like this:

    #/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; @> = qw(Roses are red. Violets are blue.); print $_, " " for @>;

    @> looks like a wrapped rose to me...

      You can even make Perl program that looks like a rose with a stem. The following program compiles and runs, although it doesn't do anything useful:
      perl -e '@}-`-,-`-%-'

      Abigail

Re: Undocumented variable?
by jonadab (Parson) on Sep 13, 2003 at 04:08 UTC

    As the other poster says, all punctuation has a certain amount of magic. Even if a given punctuation variable doesn't have any specific magic, it still has the general magic that applies to all of them. If you read the obfuscation section from time to time, you'll see people using punctuation characters to name not just scalars and arrays but also hashes. Certain punctuation characters are particularly popular for this, most notably underscore and semicolon. (%; makes for some good fun, particularly. $_{$_} is also interesting in the right combinations.) _ is also a legal name for a subroutine, though I'm not sure there's any magic in that case.

    I believe the reason all punctuation variables are automatically magical is a combination of consistency and implementation details, but frankly it shouldn't be a problem in most cases, because if you don't want weird stuff to happen you shouldn't use weird variables; there are plenty of letters in the alphabet, after all, if you're a fan of the mundane.

    In Perl 6, some of the special punctuation variables will be going away or changing, but the default arg is getting extended. In Perl5, $_ and @_ have special magic, but %_ is only magical in the general way; in Perl6, %_ will have special magic, as well. (I believe L.W. is using the term 'topic' for this.)

    Another difference in Perl6: in Perl5, all punctuation variables are global. You can scope them dynamically (with 'local'), but you cannot scope them lexically (with 'my'). In Perl6, you will be able to scope them lexically (err, whichever ones are kept, that is; as I said, some of them are going away or getting changed, renamed, or otherwise adjusted).


    $;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}} split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$ ;->();print$/
Re: Undocumented variable?
by dpmott (Scribe) on Sep 12, 2003 at 21:29 UTC
    Sorry, forgot to mention that I first found this on Perl 5.8.0 from ActiveState, but it also happens with Perl 5.8.0 built for i86pc-solaris.
    -dpmott

Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: perlquestion [id://291192]
Approved by Thelonius
Front-paged by Enlil
help
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others imbibing at the Monastery: (4)
As of 2024-03-19 04:14 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found