Re^2: perldoc -lf anomaly

returns perlfunc and perlop regardless of what "whatever" is. $ perldoc -lf anomaly /home/choroba/localperl/lib/5.43.9/pod/perlfunc.pod /home/choroba/localperl/lib/5.43.9/pod/perlop.pod

Thanks for looking into it choroba. These results clearly contradict the perldoc documentation:

perldoc perldoc (and man perldoc) says:
-l   Display only the file name of the module found.

perldoc --help says:
-l   Display the module's file name

Here's another anomaly:

% perldoc -lf splice    
/Users/u/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.42.0/lib/5.42.0/pods/perlfunc.pod
/Users/u/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.42.0/lib/5.42.0/pods/perlop.pod

% perldoc $_        
No documentation found for "splice".

% perldoc -v $_
'splice' does not look like a Perl variable

% perldoc -v '$_'
$_      The default input and pattern-searching space...

And another one:

% perldoc -v '$_'
$_      The default input and pattern-searching space...

% perldoc -v '@_' 
@_      Within a subroutine the array @_ contains the parameters...

% perldoc -v '%_'
No documentation for perl variable '%_' found

Comment on Re^2: perldoc -lf anomaly

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Re^3: perldoc -lf anomaly by choroba (Cardinal) on May 07, 2026 at 22:13 UTC
I'm not sure about the "another anomaly". You get the documentation of splice for $_, as $_ without quotes is the shell variable which contains the last argument of the last command. `map{substr$_->[0],$_->[1]\|\|0,1}[\\|\|{},3],[[]],[ref qr-1,-,-1],[{}],[sub{}^ARGV,3]`	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: perldoc -lf anomaly by Anonymous Monk on May 08, 2026 at 08:40 UTC
$_ without quotes is the shell variable which contains the last argument of the last command. 🤦	[reply]
Re^3: perldoc -lf anomaly by ikegami (Patriarch) on May 08, 2026 at 06:09 UTC
These results clearly contradict the perldoc documentation: That's not true. The docs don't say what happens if you use `-l` with `-f func` instead of a module. Here's another anomaly What do you think is anomalous? That it's looking up `splice` instead of `$_`? That's your error. You interpolated shell variable `$_` into your shell command, and it apparently had the value `splice`. And another one: What do you think is anomalous? That output is correct too, and I have no idea what you think is wrong.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: perldoc -lf anomaly (%_) by Anonymous Monk on May 08, 2026 at 09:41 UTC
Ok I was confused about -lf (and -lv and -lq) and my $_ anomaly is pure facepalm. But what about this: % perldoc -v '%_' No documentation for perl variable '%_' found %_ is a special snowflake like $_ and @_ in that they can be used under strict without declaration and they all fail in the same way if you try to own them with my: `Can't use global %_ in "my"` (but our and local work on all of them). I like using it sometimes in one-liners and dirty scripts cause `$_{$_}` looks weird and cool and it works good and I like typing it! Anyway I made Claude Haiku 4.5 at duck.ai think about %_ for 36 seconds! I've never seen the robots get so confused. They insist it doesn't exist, or it's nothing special, or that it's a filehandle or a reference to the last call to stat lol: `perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -le '%_ = ( foo => 1, bar => 2 ); print "$_ = + $_{$_}" for keys %_'` [download] foo = 1 bar = 2 So why isn't it documented? I could swear I saw it somewhere once upon a time, or maybe not... What is it??? Thanks	[reply] [d/l]
Re^5: perldoc -lf anomaly (%_) by LanX (Saint) on May 08, 2026 at 10:11 UTC
> So why isn't it documented? Because contrary to $_ and @_ it has no function > I could swear I saw it somewhere once upon a time, or maybe not... People are exploiting the side effect that it's a global and doesn't need to be declared. > What is it??? The typeglob / symbol `_` is global to allow the scalar and array slots $_ and @_ to hold magic. The hash slot is undefined but still global and can be (ab)used for syntactic sugar. Like `# No my/our %_ lives in main:: %_ = (a => 1, b => 2); # global variable in package main` [download] See also this SO discussion https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36723739/undocumented-perl-variable#36724370 Edit `perldoc -v` and `perlvar` should probably be expanded to show a generic explanation for such "reserved" special variables Cheers Rolf _{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :) see Wikisyntax for the Monastery}	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^6: perldoc -lf anomaly (%_) by LanX (Saint) on May 08, 2026 at 12:19 UTC
Re^7: perldoc -lf anomaly (%_) by choroba (Cardinal) on May 08, 2026 at 12:46 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re^5: perldoc -lf anomaly (%_) by ikegami (Patriarch) on May 08, 2026 at 17:02 UTC
`%_` is a special snowflake like `$_` and `@_` If by special snowflake you mean a punctuation variable, then yes. Yes, `%_` is an invalid names for a lexical, but that's the case for all punctuation variables. Yes, `%_` is strict-exempt, but that's the case for all super-global variables, and all punctuation variables are super-global variables.^[1] So there's nothing special about `%_` specifically, so it makes no sense to document `%_` specifically any more than it does to document `$x`. It works just like every other variable of its class. I could swear I saw it somewhere once upon a time Perl has never used `%_`. Its existence is a side effect of how super-globals are implemented: Symbols are made super-global, not individual variables. This means that `$ENV`, `@2`, `%$` and `&_` all similarly exist as super-global variables. All package variables are visible everywhere, making them all globals. By super-global, I mean that an unqualified reference to this variable looks for the symbol in `main` instead of the current package, so all unqualified references access the same variable regardless of the current package.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: perldoc -lf anomaly by ikegami (Patriarch) on May 08, 2026 at 06:14 UTC
These results clearly contradict the perldoc documentation: That's not true. The docs don't say what happens if you use `-l` with `-f func` instead of a module. Here's another anomaly What do you think is anomalous? That it's looking up `splice` instead of `$_`? That's your error. You interpolated shell variable `$_` into your shell command, and it apparently had the value `splice`. And another one: What do you think is anomalous? That output is correct too, and I have no idea what you think is wrong.	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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