in reply to numerically named vars
in thread search, replace and backrefrences
Its partly documented in perlvar but mostly in the camel. Basically all the digit scalars are used for doing pattern match storage. Apparently one of the other scripting langugae had a limit (i think 9) on the number of capture buffers allowed. I believe it was a matter of pride that perl could handle an unbounded number (ykwim). And as all of the capture buffers are read-only that makes them all read only. The lexical bit I dont remember. :-)
--- demerphq
my friends call me, usually because I'm late....
In Section
Seekers of Perl Wisdom