Re: Is an empty block not a block?

[GrandFather]

{} is an empty hash. Consider:

use warnings;
use strict;

my $hashRef = {};

print "This is fine";

then remove the variable and assignment.

use warnings;
use strict;

{};

print "This is fine";

</c>

[chas]

But if so, why is a semicolon necessary. It isn't if the hashref isn't empty as in:

{blah, "blah"}
print "This is fine\n";


I don't see why being empty changes anything essential.
Perhaps in the empty case, perl doesn't know what it is, and that's the problem...
(I guess {blah, "blah"} is considered to be a hashref; I don't know what else it would be...)
chas

[eric256]

Actualy {blah, "blah"} is considered a block. See below for proof. ;). Perl is trying to be smart and guessing on what exactly {} is based on context. {} makes lots of since as a hash ref but very little as a block. {blah, "blah"}is usefull as a block while my $x = {blah, "blah"}; is most probalby a hashref and treated that way.

C:\Perl\test>perl -e"{test,'blah'} print 'hello'";
hello
C:\Perl\test>perl -e"{test,'blah', print '1'} print 'hello'";
1hello