Perl and the magic of the perl compiler

[coolmichael]

while(<>){print if (m/foo/i)}
works quite well. It does what I expected it to do. It reads lines from STDIN and prints them if they match.

print while(<>)
also does what I expect it to do, it prints every line from STDIN.

print if(m/foo/i)
also does what I thought it would. It prints $_ if it matches foo.

print if(m/foo/i) while(<DICT>);
doesn't compile. Instead, I get an error message.

C:\>perl -e "use diagnostics; print if (m/foo/i) while(<>)"
syntax error at -e line 1, near ") while"
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors (#1)
Uncaught exception from user code:
        syntax error at -e line 1, near ") while"
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.

.

It makes sense to me, the way I've written it. Maybe I'm asking perl to do to much magic with the if infront of the while. I've tried to find the answer in perlman:perlsyn and the camel (2nd ed.) but haven't had any luck. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place. Can anyone please shed some light?

[MeowChow]

Quoth the perlsyn:

Any simple statement may optionally be followed by a SINGLE modifier, just before the terminating semicolon (or block ending). The possible modifiers are:

    if EXPR
    unless EXPR
    while EXPR
    until EXPR
    foreach EXPR

   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print

[Zaxo]

It's a matter of operator precedence¹:

$ perl -e 'm/foo/i && print while <>'
i was foo
i was foo
i was fee
i was foolish
i was foolish
^D
$

[1] Update: And, as MeowChow says, a single modifier.

After Compline,
Zaxo

[pmas]

Update: Obviously, I was wrong and MeowChow was right.
Lesson learned: Do not rush to answer questions long after midnight - just go sleep. It is better to your health - and to your XP... : )
So my last late-night comment below is generally correct, but does not answer question asked above.

Original answer
You may want to open file DICT. Operator <STDIN> reads a line from filehandle STDIN, perl opens STDIN for you, but I guess your DICT is not opened yet.
Also, <> by default uses STDIN, so <> works, too. There was recently discussion about magical <STDIN>, try STDIN in Super Search.

Sorry I cannot help more, it's getting really late...:(

pmas

To make errors is human. But to make million errors per second, you need a computer.