Re: Your favourite gory detail...

[BrowserUk]

With regard to the "difference" between  \(@array, @brray) and \((@array), @brray)--there is none.

In both cases, the contents of both arrays get flattened into a single list. The backslash is then applied to each element of that list. No amount of extra parens will change the outcome, which is a list of references to the elements of boths arrays.

Update: My (least) favorite gory detail is the limitation of using prototypes to create your own map-like subs that I first encountered in Problem emulating built-ins like map and grep. and still get bitten by from time to time.

[blokhead]

Er.. did you try it?

use Data::Dumper;
@array = (1,2,3);
@brray = (4,5,6);

print Dumper [ \(@array,@brray) ];
print Dumper [ \((@array),@brray) ];

__END__
$VAR1 = [
          [
            1,
            2,
            3
          ],
          [
            4,
            5,
            6
          ]
        ];
$VAR1 = [
          \1,
          \2,
          \3,
          [
            4,
            5,
            6
          ]
        ];

This is perl, v5.8.4 built for i386-linux-thread-multi

Update: oops, this should be a follow-up to BrowserUk's reply...

[ihb]

Yes, there is a difference.

\() is like a factored out reference operator before every thing inside the parenthesis, so \($foo, @bar, %baz, &frah) is (\$foo, \@bar, \%baz, \&frah), except if there's only one aggregate data type inside it. In that case it gets flattened and the backslash is then applied to each element of that list, as you say. This means that

    \((@foo), @bar)

becomes

    (\(@foo), \@bar)

which becomes

    (\($foo[0], $foo[1], ..., $foo[$#foo]), \@bar)

and finally

    ((\$foo[0], \$foo[1], ..., \$foo[$#foo]), \@bar)

Another example:

    \((@foo, @bar), @baz)
    (\(@foo, @bar), \@baz)
    ((\@foo, \@bar)), \@baz)

Update: I just realized that my second example is rather useless as the end result is the same as if there was no inner parenthesis. But the intermediate step perhaps still has a pedagogical value.

(I don't know if this recursive behaviour is how it's actually performed under the hood, but it works this way none the less.)

ihb

[Ido]

That's why I said it was WEIRD!;)

Update: Gha..That too was meant to follow BrowserUk's..