Well, Perl 6 will let you do:

       if (@array[3,4] ^=~ /\S/) { ... }
[download]

so, in Perl 6, will that mean "and" or "or"?

Neither. It's exactly the same as: if (@array[3] =~ /\S/, @array[4] =~ /\S/) { ... }

which is true if @array[4] contains any non-whitespace.

That is, I recall ^=~ being able to work over a list, but what will if do with the resulting list?

Just what a Perl 5 if does with it.

In other words, does it become this (a grep-ish map)?

No, I don't believe so.

BTW, what you're looking for is: if (any(@array[3,4]) =~ /\S/) {...} or: if (all(@array[3,4]) =~ /\S/) {...} both of which (I'm very hopeful) will be standard in Perl 6.

Ah, ok. I learned something new. And your dang-blasted "in constant time!" functions might find their way to the Perl 6 core? I have some nasty words for you, but I said them all at the same time and they came out jumbled. You're lucky. ;)

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

In constant time?

I think not.

Not even in a parallel universe are they constant time.

Now if you had an unlimited supply of parallel universes, that might be different...

But in the meantime I am sticking with my comment that Quantum::Superpositions is where Moore meets Murphy.

Just so everyone is clear... This means that (scalar) context will be preserved by ^=~ (and other ^ constructs), correct?

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

This means that (scalar) context will be preserved by ^=~ (and other ^ constructs), correct?

It means that hyperoperators will distribute their own context (whatever it is) to each component of the operation, and then aggregate the results into a list.

For example:

    $foo = @bar ^=~ /baz/;
    # each @bar[$i] =~ /baz in scalar context

    @foo = @bar ^=~ /baz/;
    # each @bar[$i] =~ /baz in list context
[download]

Hmmmm. That brings up an interesting point though. If the results were aggregated into an array rather than a list, then japhy's greppish interpretation of if (@var ^=~ /baz/) {...} might well be correct, after all.

I'm going to have to thrash this out with Larry. Thanks for raising the issue.

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;