Re: RFC 110 (v3) counting matches

On Mon, Aug 28, 2000 at 01:30:41PM -0500, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
> >     $count = () = $string =~ /pattern/g;
> 
> Which I find cute as a demonstration of the Perl's context concept,
> but ugly as hell from usability viewpoint.  I how to assign to an
> empty list to get a number of something?  Hello?  This harks back to
> the dirty (similarly cute, but still dirty) (c(a(s(t)))) games of C.
> It may be an idiom but it still doesn't sing to me.

It's pretty far from perfect, but I do find the above much easier
to understand than

  $count = $string =~ /pattern/t;

There are far too many regexp option modifiers as it stands.  I don't
think adding new ones for functionality which can be derived from the
existing ones is going to help anyone.  I'm quite certain that a
t modifier sings less for me than the existing idiom.

                      - Damien