in reply to Re^2: Update to smartmatch
in thread Update to smartmatch

On rare occasions I've found it very convenient for debugging purposes, such as when I want to quickly compare two arrays.

If I recall correctly, last time I used it I was "cleaning up" some old code and I wanted a quick way to double check that the output array from the old code and the output array from the new code were exactly the same.

Just another Perl hooker - My clients appreciate that I keep my code clean but my comments dirty.

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Re^4: Update to smartmatch
by 1nickt (Canon) on Dec 28, 2017 at 16:03 UTC

    But why live with the warnings and the uncertainty about the function's future? 

    perl -wE '
my @foo = (1, 2, 3);
my @bar = (1, 2, 3);
my @baz = (1, 2, 4);
say "@foo" eq "@bar";
say "@foo" eq "@baz";
'
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    Or: 
    perl -MTest::Deep::NoTest=eq_deeply -wE '
my @foo = (1, 2, 3);
my @bar = (1, 2, 3);
my @baz = (1, 2, 4);
say eq_deeply \@foo, \@bar;
say eq_deeply \@foo, \@baz;
'
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    smartmatch: 
    perl -wE '
my @foo = (1, 2, 3);
my @bar = (1, 2, 3);
my @baz = (1, 2, 4);
say @foo ~~ @bar;
say @foo ~~ @baz;
'
Smartmatch is experimental at -e line 5.
Smartmatch is experimental at -e line 6.
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    The way forward always starts with a minimal test.
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      I don't, that's why I only use it when I'm doing debugging/verification. I usually just comment out any such quick checks if not outright delete them in the end. It's mostly just a convenience for me to make sure data structures are the same before/after some code I change.

      In all honesty, I probably would have skipped learning about it had I known it was "experimental", but I went ahead and read through the chapter of Learning Perl that covered Smart Match and Given-When (also experimental) without knowing that, and only found out when I went to do the exercises at the end. I've never had a reason occur to me as to where I would use given-when, but I have found Smart Match occasionally useful for quick and dirty (i.e. lazy one line) debugging. :-)

      Just another Perl hooker - My clients appreciate that I keep my code clean but my comments dirty.
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