in reply to What does $# stand for?

$#array returns the last index in a array. So, one less than the number of elements in a array.
The code above is pretty ugly, and I would replace it by 
if (scalar @missing)

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other examples: 
scalar @array == ($#array + 1) 
# is always true unless you redefine where the index starts.


for my $i (0..$#array) 
{
  # loops through the array by index number  
}

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Re: Re: What does $# stand for?
by Fletch (Bishop) on Oct 15, 2001 at 00:43 UTC

    Actually the scalar in the first case isn't necessary since boolean context is (more or less) scalar context as is shown with the code below. 

    @a = ();
print "try 1\n";
print "Has elements\n" if @a;

push @a, 1;
print "try 2\n";
print "Has elements\n" if @a;

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