«

On Feb 22, 10:38*pm, "J. Gleixner" <glex_no-s...@qwest-spam-
no.invalid> wrote:
> K4 Monk wrote:
> > I've installed it now. I've programmed (if you can call it that) in
> > perl for years and never heard about perldoc. I generally wrote
> > whatever scripts I had to write with a bit of fiddling around and
> > looking at existing code
>
> Welcome to the 21st century.
>
> Be sure to learn about CPAN too: *http://www.cpan.org/

Thank you! btw, I posted this in another newsgroup but never got a
response. After reading this thread and one of the booke (HOP) I have
realized that I don't know Perl. I've never used functions extensively
and don't understand how they work. And here's a program I wrote to
prove it.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

sub func {
my %list;
$list{"map"} = "key";
$list{"l"}="j";

my @arr;
push (@arr, "egg");
push (@arr, "hell");


return (%list, @arr);

}

my @arrref = &func();
my %l = %{$arrref[0]};
my @r = @{$arrref[1]};

print "keys\n";
foreach my $k(keys %l) { print "$k\n"; }
print "array\n";
foreach my $rr(@r) { print "$rr\n"; }

K4 Monk <> wrote:
>Thank you! btw, I posted this in another newsgroup but never got a
>response. After reading this thread and one of the booke (HOP) I have
>realized that I don't know Perl. I've never used functions extensively
>and don't understand how they work.

See "perldoc perlsub"

>And here's a program I wrote to
>prove it.
>
>#!/usr/bin/perl
>use strict;

Good. But you should also enable warnings.

use warnings;

>sub func {
> my %list;
> $list{"map"} = "key";
> $list{"l"}="j";

You can write such an initialization more easily as
my %list = (
"map" => "key",
"l" => "j");

> my @arr;
> push (@arr, "egg");
> push (@arr, "hell");

Most people would probably do a simple
my @arr = ('egg", "hell");

> return (%list, @arr);

You are aware that you are returning a list with 6 elements, mixing your
hash and array elements indiscrimently togehter, aren't you?
Just like arguments the return value of a sub is just a list of scalars,
too, and any sub-structure or composite data will be flattened.

>}
>
> my @arrref = &func();

Just print the lenght of the array here
print scalar(@arrref);
and it will tell you that @arrref contains 6 elements.

> my %l = %{$arrref[0]};
> my @r = @{$arrref[1]};

Whatever you are trying to do here doesn't work because @arrref already
contains the wrong data. If you want to preserve your return hash and
return array from sub func then first of all you have to return a
reference to them instead of their values (see "Make Rule 1" in "Making
References" in "perldoc perlreftut")

return (\%list, \@arr);

Then the rest will more or less fall into place on its own.

jue

On Feb 23, 8:09*am, J rgen Exner <jurge...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> K4 Monk <k4m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Thank you! btw, I posted this in another newsgroup but never got a
> >response. After reading this thread and one of the booke (HOP) I have
> >realized that I don't know Perl. I've never used functions extensively
> >and don't understand how they work.
>
> See "perldoc perlsub"
>
> >And here's a program I wrote to
> >prove it.
>
> >#!/usr/bin/perl
> >use strict;
>
> Good. But you should also enable warnings.
>
> * * * * use warnings;
>
> >sub func {
> > * *my %list;
> > * *$list{"map"} = "key";
> > * *$list{"l"}="j";
>
> You can write such an initialization more easily as
> * * * * my %list = (
> * * * * * * "map" => "key",
> * * * * * * "l" => "j");
>
> > * *my @arr;
> > * *push (@arr, "egg");
> > * *push (@arr, "hell");
>
> Most people would probably do a simple
> * * * * my @arr = ('egg", "hell");
>
> > * *return (%list, @arr);
>
> You are aware that you are returning a list with 6 elements, mixing your
> hash and array elements indiscrimently togehter, aren't you?

Thank you jue, no I wasn't aware of this, and on my end I spent an
hour looking for the but gave up.

> Just like arguments the return value of a sub is just a list of scalars,
> too, *and any sub-structure or composite data will be flattened.

so, even if I do a func(%hash), on func's end it gets an array of a
scalar pointing to %hash?


>
> >}
>
> > my @arrref = &func();
>
> Just print the lenght of the array here
> * * * * print scalar(@arrref);

nice. I noted this down.

> and it will tell you that @arrref contains 6 elements.
>
> > my %l = %{$arrref[0]};
> > my @r = @{$arrref[1]};
>
> Whatever you are trying to do here doesn't work because @arrref already
> contains the wrong data. If you want to preserve your return hash and
> return array from sub func then first of all you have to return a
> reference to them instead of their values (see "Make Rule 1" in "Making
> References" in "perldoc perlreftut")
>
> * * * * return (\%list, \@arr);
>
> Then the rest will more or less fall into place on its own.
>
> jue

Thanks jue for your help!

K4 Monk <> wrote:
>so, even if I do a func(%hash), on func's end it gets an array of a
>scalar pointing to %hash?

No. It gets a flat(!) list(!) which is composed of the alternating keys
and values of %hash, i.e. if %hash has 5 entries then the argument list
@_ of func(%hash) will contain 10 values.

jue

On 2011-02-23, K4 Monk <> wrote:
>
> so, even if I do a func(%hash), on func's end it gets an array of a
> scalar pointing to %hash?

AIUI (and ICBW, in which case this'll be a learning exercise for me
too), if you do func(%hash) what func receives *is* an array, there's
no 'pointing to'. For example:

my %hash = (
john => "lennon",
paul => "macca",
george => "harrison",
ringo => "star",
);
func(%hash);

func() would receive an array containing qw/john, lennon, paul, macca,
george, harrison, ringo, star/ ... which can be shown by:
sub func {
print $_, "\n" for @_;
}

You could massage the array back into a hash in func() with (for
example)
sub func {
my %hash = @_;
# do stuff ...
}

Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.

On Feb 24, 5:03*am, Tad McClellan <ta...@seesig.invalid> wrote:
> K4 Monk <k4m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Feb 23, 8:09*am, J rgen Exner <jurge...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> K4 Monk <k4m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >I've never used functions extensively
> >> >and don't understand how they work.
>
> >> See "perldoc perlsub"
>
> Have you done that yet?

yep, finally!

"The Perl model for function call and return values is simple:
all functions are passed as
parameters one single flat list of scalars, and all functions
likewise return to their caller one
single flat list of scalars. Any arrays or hashes in these
call and return lists will collapse,
losing their identities--but you may always use pass-by-
reference instead to avoid this. "

On 2011-02-24, Tad McClellan <> wrote:
> Justin C <> wrote:
>> On 2011-02-23, K4 Monk <> wrote:
>>>
>>> so, even if I do a func(%hash), on func's end it gets an array of a
>>> scalar pointing to %hash?
>>
>> AIUI (and ICBW, in which case this'll be a learning exercise for me
>> too), if you do func(%hash) what func receives *is* an array,
>
>
> Not it *is not* an array.
>
> It is a list.

kick($self)

I know this, why do I always call it an array?! <shakes head>

Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:18:32 +0000, Justin C wrote:

> kick($self)

Better written as:

$self->kick();

although if kick() does not exist, the former fails at compile time while
the latter fails at run time.



M4

>>>>> "Martijn" == Martijn Lievaart <> writes:

Martijn> Better written as:

Martijn> $self->kick();

Martijn> although if kick() does not exist, the former fails at compile time while
Martijn> the latter fails at run time.

And if kick doesn't know what to do with an object of the type that
$self is, it'll have to check that itself unless it's a method call.

--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See http://methodsandmessages.posterous.com/ for Smalltalk discussion

On 2011-02-25, Tad McClellan <> wrote:
> Justin C <> wrote:
>> On 2011-02-24, Tad McClellan <> wrote:
>>> Justin C <> wrote:
>>>> On 2011-02-23, K4 Monk <> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> so, even if I do a func(%hash), on func's end it gets an array of a
>>>>> scalar pointing to %hash?
>>>>
>>>> AIUI (and ICBW, in which case this'll be a learning exercise for me
>>>> too), if you do func(%hash) what func receives *is* an array,
>>>
>>>
>>> Not it *is not* an array.
>>>
>>> It is a list.
>>
>> kick($self)
>>
>> I know this, why do I always call it an array?! <shakes head>
>
>
> It even happens to Larry.
>
> He gave us wantarray() rather than wantlist()

I'm in good company then! That doesn't make me feel so bad.

Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.