Undocumented Perl Functionality

bobo999 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi, This is my first post. I've encountered some Perl functionality that I can't find any documentation for and can be demonstrated by the following two command lines (I'm running on Linux and Perl v5.26.1):

perl -E 'printf "%s\n", chr 65'

This line prints the character 'A'. The following line also prints the character 'A'

perl -E 'printf "%s\n", v65'

It appears that v<number> is some kind of internal equivalent to chr(number) call, however, I can't find any search results in any of my perl books and Google searches. Can anyone shed some light on this?

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Re: Undocumented Perl Functionality by haukex (Archbishop) on Mar 15, 2021 at 18:22 UTC
It appears that v<number> is some kind of internal equivalent to chr(number) Version Strings	[reply]
Re^2: Undocumented Perl Functionality by bobo999 (Initiate) on Mar 16, 2021 at 16:46 UTC
Thanks for your response. Version strings are not covered/documented in any of my programming Perl books so no wonder I couldn't find any information about them. It's time to get the latest Perl book!	[reply]
Re^3: Undocumented Perl Functionality by haukex (Archbishop) on Mar 16, 2021 at 17:20 UTC
It's time to get the latest Perl book! AFAICT, they first showed up in the 3rd Edition Camel as "V-String Literals" and in the 4th ed as "Version Literals". And by the way, welcome to the Monastery!	[reply]
Re^3: Undocumented Perl Functionality by talexb (Chancellor) on Mar 16, 2021 at 19:09 UTC
Version strings are not covered/documented in any of my programming Perl books .. I have the fourth edition of the Camel (February 2012), and v-string is defined on page 1080. :) Alex / talexb / Toronto Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.	[reply]