Unquoted strings with strict

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

You can assign an unquoted string to a variable, even when strict mode is on, like this:

use warnings;
use strict;

my $foo = hello =>;
print $foo;
[download]

(This is more of an obfuscation than a request for enlightenment, but the Obfuscated code section seems to be reserved for complete obfuscated programs. Sorry if this is in the wrong place.)

Comment on Unquoted strings with strict Download Code

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Re: Unquoted strings with strict by premchai21 (Curate) on Dec 12, 2001 at 23:41 UTC
This is documented, and used most often in hashes, like this: `%hash = ( foo => 'bar', # note 'foo' not needed bar => 'baz', baz => 'foo', items => 3 ); print $hash{items}; # note 'items' not needed` [download] The `=>` acts like a special sort of comma, which quotes barewords on the left; barewords are also quoted in hash lookups.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Unquoted strings with strict by Vavoom (Scribe) on Dec 12, 2001 at 23:45 UTC
Technically, => quotes its left side argument, making this: `my $foo = hello =>;` [download] equivalent to this: `my $foo = 'hello',;` [download] Vavoom	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Unquoted strings with strict by kwoff (Friar) on Dec 12, 2001 at 23:38 UTC
I think it is a quoted string, though, because of the `=>` operator. Maybe it's only a matter of semantics, though.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Unquoted strings with strict by robin (Chaplain) on Dec 12, 2001 at 23:45 UTC
It's arguable, I suppose. Maybe it's better to use `=>` consistently: `use warnings; use strict; ;my $foo => ;$foo = hello => ;print $foo =>` [download] (updated for symmetry)	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Unquoted strings with strict by tadman (Prior) on Dec 12, 2001 at 23:43 UTC
This seems to be some sort of magical property of the arrow operator. Any alphanumeric+underscore type text before it is recognized as an unquoted string, and this even applies to text inside curly braces, such as: `foo => $x same as: 'foo' => $x $x{foo} same as: $x{'foo'}` [download]	[reply] [d/l]