To express a null string, why would anyone use ...=q{} intead of ...= '' ?

[mikelieman]

I just came across this while doing some maintenance work.

$debug = q{};

And can't think of a single reason why this would be preferable to the simpler form:

$debug = '';

Am I missing something here, or is it just another example of TMTOWTDI ( but you probably shouldn't... )

Originally posted as a Categorized Question.

[toolic]

Damian Conway, in his book Perl Best Practices, considers it a better practice to use q{} (the single-quote operator with matching braces) instead of two single quotes because two single quotes is easily confused with a double quote for some font settings.

[JavaFan]

Here's a reason: (hey, you said you couldn't think of a single reason...)

my $quote    = q{'};
my $question = q{?};
my $star     = q{*};
my $empty    = q{};