dicty has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I see if statement with only a variable in the condition (), such as if ($search) { ... }. What's the condition for $search? I feel very confused about this code. Thanks, Dicty

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Re: if statement question
by toolic (Bishop) on Dec 13, 2012 at 20:23 UTC
    If $search has a true value, the code block inside the curlies will be executed. If not, the code inside the curlies won't be executed.

    Tip #2 from the Basic debugging checklist: display the contents of variables using print: 

    print ">>>$search<<<";
if ($search) {
}

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Re: if statement question
by nubbel (Novice) on Dec 13, 2012 at 20:25 UTC
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Re: if statement question
by nithins (Sexton) on Dec 14, 2012 at 06:57 UTC 
    use strict;

## scalar has not been initialized here the value in $result is undef
my $result;

print "hi" if ($result); 

### scalar has been initialized and the value here is 12
 
$result = 12;

print $result if($result);

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    In 1st ,if condition looks for the value of a variable "$result" in this case its just declared its not been initialized hence if is evaluated as false and doesn't print "Hi"

    In second, if condition looks for the value of a variable, its present & value is 12 , then if is evaluated as true and it print's "hi".

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