Re: is \1 vs $1 a necessary distinction?

On Wed, 27 Sep 2000 10:34:48 -0500, Jonathan Scott Duff wrote:

>If $1 could be made to work properly on the LHS of s///, I'd vote for
>that being The Way.

I disagree, because \1 is different from a variable $foo in at least two
ways:

 * $foo is compiled into /$foo/ before anything is matched. \1 is a
repetition of what was just matched; this is dynamic interpolation
instead of static.

 * if $foo contains metacharacters, they are treated as metacharacters.
for example, if $foo is "a.b", then /$foo/ can match "axb". /\1/, OTOH,
can only match the LITERAL string that $1 captured. With $foo='a.b', 

	/($foo)!$foo/

and

	/($foo)!\1/

will not match the same set of things.

"\1" is more like equivalent to "\Q$1\E". Therefore, I don't want $1 on
the LHS to be the standard syntax.

-- 
	Bart.