Re^4: Multiple file input into a perl script

The magic diamond-operator <> only works if you stuff the filenames into @ARGV.

My reading of I/O Operators has me believing that using the diamond operator for globbing works as the OP seems to expect. Here's what I get with a simple test:

-> ls
file1.txt       file2.txt       file3.txt
-> perl -le '@files = <file*>; print @files;'
file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt
[download]

I may have missed something, but it looks to me that kelder's expectation of how globbing works with <> is right. Is there a platform difference to worry about? (OP is on a Mac, above test runs the same on a Mac and under NetBSD.)

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Re^5: Multiple file input into a perl script by Corion (Patriarch) on Oct 01, 2008 at 05:42 UTC
That part works. The empty diamond, used to read the contents of all files (or STDIN) is what doesn't work without setting up @ARGV. That dual use is why I prefer an explicit glob() over the diamond...	[reply]
Re^6: Multiple file input into a perl script by broomduster (Priest) on Oct 01, 2008 at 12:51 UTC
That dual use is why I prefer an explicit glob() over the diamond.. And so do I ;-)... In fact, just last week at $DAYJOB, I had an interesting "discussion" with $COWORKER who is relatively new to Perl and insisted that `while ( <> )` `while ( <file> )` `while ( <@ARGV> )` all do the same thing. When $COWORKER was confronted with examples of the differences, the "problem" morphed first into "a bug in Perl", then to "incorrect documentation", then to "should* do the same thing" (I guess that's progress :-) ). All of which is a long (and hopefully slightly humorous) explanation of why I should have caught what you were saying the first time.	[reply] [d/l] [select]


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