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Hi,

Searching perldoc (Perl 5 version 14.1) for the built-in 'substr' function
gives:

> substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH,REPLACEMENT
> substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH
> substr EXPR,OFFSET
>
> Extracts a substring out of EXPR and returns it. First character is at
> offset 0 ...

Is "0" a typo for "OFFSET" -- that is, should the first sentence be: "First
character is at offset OFFSET..." -- or am I just confused?

Thanks,
Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum

On Thursday, May 3, 2012 4:24:02 PM UTC+10, Athanasius wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Searching perldoc (Perl 5 version 14.1) for the built-in 'substr' function
> gives:
>
> > substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH,REPLACEMENT
> > substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH
> > substr EXPR,OFFSET
> >
> > Extracts a substring out of EXPR and returns it. First character isat
> > offset 0 ...
>


No, that is 0, the way you count is 0,1,2, .... so the first character is at position 0. If the offset is say 3, then the string is taken from starting at the 4th character.


Owen
> Is "0" a typo for "OFFSET" -- that is, should the first sentence be: "First
> character is at offset OFFSET..." -- or am I just confused?
>
> Thanks,
> Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum

"Athanasius" <Athanasius@invalid> wrote:

>Searching perldoc (Perl 5 version 14.1) for the built-in 'substr' function
>gives:
>
>> substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH,REPLACEMENT
>> substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH
>> substr EXPR,OFFSET
>>
>> Extracts a substring out of EXPR and returns it. First character is at
>> offset 0 ...
>
>Is "0" a typo for "OFFSET" -- that is, should the first sentence be: "First
>character is at offset OFFSET..." -- or am I just confused?

Read that as "first character _of_the_original_string_ is at offset 0,
i.e. if you want to retrieve the first character of the original string,
then you have to use offset 0.

jue

"Jürgen Exner" <> wrote:

> Read that as "first character _of_the_original_string_ is at offset 0,
> i.e. if you want to retrieve the first character of the original string,
> then you have to use offset 0.

Ok, I guess that makes sense. (But, I still think this way of putting
things reads like "documentation" =~ s/document/obfusc/ .)

Thanks Jue and Owen for your prompt replies.

Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum