help with (what I consider) a strange problem

[dusk]

Fellow monks,
I am using Text::Bastardize to output user input in pig latin. But, I am encountering a problem
When I assign `<>' to a scalar, and assign the scalar to `$_', it works fine. but when I `chomp' <>, it will not work.
Sample code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Text::Bastardize;

my $line = <>;
$_ = $line;
my $latin = Text::Bastardize->new();
$latin->charge($_);
print $latin->pig(),"\n"

That code works; but outputs with an appended newline.

When I use:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Text::Bastardize;

my $line = <>;
$_ = chomp($line);
my $latin = Text::Bastardize->new();
$latin->charge($_);
print $latin->pig(),"\n"

It doesn't output anything. I do not know whether I am making a basic error, or if Text::Bastardize's `charge' doesn't like the use of chomp for some reason

Please help :)

[sachmet]

perldoc -f chomp should tell you that chomp returns the total number of characters chomped from its arguments. So in essense, you're trying to piglatinize "1". Try changing $latin->charge($_) to $latin->charge($line).

As an aside, you shouldn't assign to $_. You can do Bad Things(tm) like that if you're not careful.

[danger]

You are assigning the return value of chomp() to $_ ... and chomp() returns whatever it chomped off the end of the string, not the chomped string.

updateMy bad ... chomp() returns the number of characters chomped off --- it seems Text::Bastardize has a problem with digits and hangs, at least that's what I get with this example:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Text::Bastardize;
my $latin = Text::Bastardize->new();
$latin->charge('blah 10 ');
print $latin->pig(),"\n"

seems like a bug in Bastardize to me.

[sachmet]

Nope... chomp returns number of chars chopped. So:
$t = "t\n"; $num = chomp($t); print "$num"
prints "1", whereas:
$t = "t"; $num = chomp($t); print "$num"
prints "", whereas:


@t = ("t\n","u\n","v","w\n");
$num = chomp(@t); print "$num";


prints "3".

(edited: error in my code fixed)

[dusk]

Thank you all for your help. I apologize for neglecting to use perldoc
My code is now:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Text::Bastardize;

chomp(my $line = <>);
my $latin = Text::Bastardize->new();
$latin->charge($line);
print $latin->pig(),"\n"

Which works perfectly :)

update: removed unecessary `$_' assignment. Thanks danger :)

[chipmunk]

I can't figure out why that code even compiles. Assigning to chomp should result in the following error: Can't modify scalar safe chop in scalar assignment... But, this error doesn't occur when assigning to chomp if the argument to chomp is an assignment from a filehandle read. Some sort of obscure parsing bug...

Here's what your code should look like:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Text::Bastardize;

chomp(my $line = <>);
my $latin = Text::Bastardize->new();
$latin->charge($line);
print $latin->pig(),"\n";