Re: proposed addition to perlvar

* Abigail <[email protected]> [2010-06-09 23:05]:
> In a section showing an example of '$#', the example should
> preferable have as few other things as possible - I would
> prefer the above over any foreach construct. These lines are
> about $#. Not foreach. Not ranges. And it is code that people
> will encounter - and consult the documentation for.

The code they will encounter by far the most is `0 .. $#foo`. By
your own argument, that would ideally be part of the examples.


* Chas. Owens <[email protected]> [2010-06-09 18:00]:
> C<$#> is also used as sigil, which, when prepended on the name of an
> array or applied to an array reference gives the index of the last
> element in that array.

Too many details. (Typical documentitis.) Less is more:

    C<$#> is also an alternative sigil for arrays which yields
    the index of the last element.

The examples should make plenty clear what that means.


diff --git a/pod/perlvar.pod b/pod/perlvar.pod
index 6c04c2e..8f001aa 100644
--- a/pod/perlvar.pod
+++ b/pod/perlvar.pod
@@ -1651,8 +1651,8 @@ C<$#> used to be a variable that could be used to format printed numbers.
 After a deprecation cycle, its magic was removed in Perl 5.10 and using it
 now triggers a warning: C<$# is no longer supported>.

-C<$#> is also used as sigil, which, when prepended on the name of an
-array, gives the index of the last element in that array.
+C<$#> is also an alternative sigil for arrays which yields the index
+of the last element.

     my @array        = ("a", "b", "c");
     my $last_index   = $#array;   # $last_index is 2