broquaint's recent reply to a discussion on programming style, has set me thinking.

So, if you want modifiable scalar parameters, you can change them inside a sub by using $_[0], $_[1] etc. as lvalues without resorting to references. Interesting.

Also, I am reminded of how $_ gets bound to successive members of an array:

foreach (@foo) {
    $_++;        # Add 1 to each member of @foo
}
[download]

Is the same true if you use an intermediate variable - does it get aliased, or merely assigned? Apologies: I don't have access to a machine running Perl at the moment

foreach my $bar (@foo) {
    $bar++;
}
[download]

Also I'm wondering about the future of all this. What of behaviour in Perl 6? Coming back to the first scenario, I hear that Perl 6 will be getting some Ruby features. Does this include passing parameters by name and hence Jensen's device?

--rW

Note: magicality - this might be a new term I am coining. Magicality bears as much relation to magic as sexuality does to sex.

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.