Re^3: A way to avoid repeated conditional loops

[SuicideJunkie]

Are you assuming that 'alpha' is also always the first line in the file?

Also, the posted flipflop doesn't behave the same as the OP

A simpler way to just use a flag and short circuit the regex work:

    my $seen = 0;
    while (<$fh>)
    {
        if ( !$seen and m/^alpha$/)
        {
            $seen = 'yes indeed';
            print "true\n";
        }else{
            print "false\n";
        }
    }

Given a test file of:

foo
bar
alpha
beta
gamma
delta

The results I got are:

Original:
false
false
true
false
false
false

Flipflop:
Argument "" isn't numeric in numeric gt (>) at test.pl line 21, <$fh> 
+line 1.
false
Argument "" isn't numeric in numeric gt (>) at test.pl line 21, <$fh> 
+line 2.
false
false
true
true
true

Flag:
false
false
true
false
false
false

[tinita]

hm, if I add no warnings "numeric"; to the flip-flop code, the output seems to be fine. output all lines after "alpha". at least that's how I understood the task.

[Anonymous Monk]

The OP code has an else condition on the match for alpha. That should execute for every line of the file except the 'alpha', regardless of before or after.

[Deus Ex]

No, "alpha" might be anywhere in the middle of the file (but it will appear only once).

Actually the flip-flop operator may work only after "alpha" matched.

Many thanks though for the short-circuiting thing :)