Re^2: reset function (never)

Once in a while I repeat saying something like

"Perl doesn't stop to surprise me!"

And I always hope the intervals between these moments will get bigger...

But now... oh man ... this reset builtin is really scary!

  DB<132> @x=(4,2);$x=42; $y=0; 
          while ($y++<3) {
             $x=$y; 
             print "$x -" ; 
             reset('x') if $y>1 ;
             print " $x : @x\n"; 
          }
1 - 1 : 4 2
2 -  : 
3 -  :
[download]

IMHO it doesn't "reset" at all, it just deletes all variables of the glob *x without deleting the glob.

Only delete $main::{'x'} is more radical...

o_O WTF !?!

Cheers Rolf

( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

update

Me thinks this must be a relict of one-liner hacking. Anything else is just to dangerous..

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Re^3: reset function (never) by boftx (Deacon) on Nov 21, 2013 at 02:47 UTC
WOW!! WTF, indeed! I can understand something that would reset a match, but variables that start with a given letter? Can someone provide a use-case for this that makes sense? It helps to remember that the primary goal is to drain the swamp even when you are hip-deep in alligators.	[reply]
Re^4: reset function (not perl4) by Anonymous Monk on Nov 21, 2013 at 03:33 UTC
Can someone provide a use-case for this that makes sense? I thought surely the use case is perl4, but it wasn't available in perl4, it became available in perl5, and looks to be http://perldoc.perl.org/perlapi.html#sv_reset exposed It is barely used (one place) http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git?a=search&h=HEAD&st=grep&s=sv_reset I guess, larry thought, it may be useful for Perl ... but it turned out to not be useful for Perl, and its kind of deprecated :) Maybe the thinking was where `local $foo_one, $foo_bar,...;` can get tedious, `reset 'f';` saves typing, anyway, reset simply appeared from larry with perl5a2 20 years ago For comparison of old cruft in perl see Re^2: Perl format line breaking, $FORMAT_LINE_BREAK_CHARACTERS apparently ignored	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^5: reset function (not perl4) by dave_the_m (Monsignor) on Nov 21, 2013 at 09:08 UTC
I thought surely the use case is perl4, but it wasn't available in perl4, it became available in perl5 Nope, its been there since perl1: http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob/8d063cd8450e59ea1c611a2f4f5a21059a2804f1:/perl.man.2#l230 Dave.	[reply]