Re: [code-review] Bencode.pm

--- Caleb Epstein <[email protected]> wrote:
> When encoding a HASH -> bencoded form, there is no way to tell if the
> user intends a value which contains all-digits to be encoded as an
> integer or a string.

Not sure if this helps you, but you can tell if a Perl value is a string
or a number by exploiting that bitwise operators operate differently on
numbers and strings. This trick is due to merlyn; for example:
  my $x = "123";
  if ((~$x & $x) ne '0') {
     print "x '$x' is a string\n";
  } else {
     print "x '$x' is a number\n";
  }
  my $y = 123;
  if ((~$y & $y) ne '0') {
     print "y '$y' is a string\n";
  } else {
     print "y '$y' is a number\n";
  }
prints:
  x '123' is a string
  y '123' is a number
(Devel::Peek can also tell the difference).

Also, I noticed you are using capturing parens, for example:
  /^(0|[1-9]\d*):/
It is faster to use non-capturing ones, for example:
  /^(?:0|[1-9]\d*):/

/-\


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