I quite like that one. I came close to that but missed (actually, simply wasn't aware of) the @{\@array) 'trick'.

However (you knew that was coming right?), as I can do:

my (@a1,@a2) = ([1,2,3],[3,2,1]);
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Update: the above line doesn't work after all

I had tried:

my (@a1,@a2) = ([1,2,3,4,5,6,7],[7,6,5,4,3,2,1]);
print Dumper(@a1), Dumper(@a2);
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which gave:

$VAR1 = [
          1,
          2,
          3,
          4,
          5,
          6,
          7
        ];
$VAR2 = [
          7,
          6,
          5,
          4,
          3,
          2,
          1
        ];
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print "a1\n", Dumper(@a1), "a2\n", Dumper(@a2);
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That I saw what tstock meant below.

Thanks tstock, I'll be more careful in future with my quick tests. (I agree about the loop/if being better too.)

end of update

Which personally I find a very clear yet concise way of declaring and initialising two arrays. It still seems as if something close to:

my ( @dirs, @files)= 
   ( @{-d}, @{-f} ) for (readdir DIR);
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could be possible if I could only get the syntactic sugar right!

This is only an exercise in my trying to understand arrays and list contexts etc. ie. Its essentially a purely academic excercise for late (for me) on a Sunday evening, and so not worthy of anyone's time unless they are also in play mode.

However (you knew that was coming right?), as I can do:
my (@a1,@a2) = ([1,2,3],[3,2,1]);

This doesn't work, sorry. You get @a1 with two array references and @a2 undefined.

tstock

Update : This is your one liner: (someone please -- me down for posting this)

map {
     ($_ ne '.') && ($_ ne '..') &&
     push @{ -d "$base/$_" ? \@dirs : \@files }, $_
} (readdir DIR);
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I think we can agree that the FOR LOOP/IF STATEMENT is probably a nicer solution ? :)

I think we can agree that the FOR LOOP/IF STATEMENT is probably a nicer solution ? :)

Especially since it's almost the for loop I posted - just s/map/for/, pull the (readdir DIR) up top, slip a next into the loop, and there you have it.

If you actually want something that's not a for loop in disguise, you could pull a really horrible trick like

my @dir;
my @files = map {
    ($_ ne '.') && ($_ ne '..') &&
    -d "$base/$_" ?
        do { push @dir, $_; () } :
        -f "$base/$_" && $_
} readdir DIR;
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But if the Communications Decency Act had gone through I wouldn't have been able to even post this.

Makeshifts last the longest.

to implement this code properly, you must test for both -d, and -f, and ignore the rest. add next unless -d $_ or -f _; before the push statement and you'll have what you're looking for.

for (readdir DIR) {
  next if $_ eq '.' or $_ eq '..';
  next unless -d $base . '/' . $_ or -f _;
  push @{ -d $base . '/' . $_ ? \@dirs : \@files }, $_;
}
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Update 2: for more info on filetests, see -X under perlfunc

~Particle *accelerates*

next unless -d $_ or -f _; Careful, it's "$base/$_". Excellent point though.

Makeshifts last the longest.