Re: My habitual errors

[ptum]

Even after all this time, I still sometimes inadvertently use assignment instead of testing for numeric equality:

if ($first = $second) {
  # do something
}
else {
  # this code is never executed since assignment to $first always retu
+rns true
}

Sigh. It is dumb, but I did it just last week.

Update: as pointed out by jdporter, in cases where $second evaluates as false, the resulting assignment to $first will also return false. While this rarely happens to me (since I'm usually trying to evaluate numerical equality between non-zero variables), it is an important distinction.

[imp]

For comparisons that have a constant I keep that value on the left hand side to avoid accidental assignment. Doesn't work for expressions that use two variables of course.

if (0 == $n) {
}
elsif (1 == $n) {
}

[jdporter]

# this code is never executed since assignment to $first always returns true

No; it will be false when $second is false.