the long way round

This one won't exactly keep you up all night, but it might make you scratch your head for a moment:

print qw(another just hacker perl)[$[-$_]for-1..2
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“Every bit of code is either naturally related to the problem at hand, or else it's an accidental side effect of the fact that you happened to solve the problem using a digital computer.”
M-J D

Comment on the long way round Download Code

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Re: the long way round by Trapanator (Initiate) on Jul 08, 2003 at 09:18 UTC
Sorry, I don't understand it; can you explain me? Or there are guides about obfuscating? Thanx...	[reply]
Re: Re: the long way round by Cody Pendant (Prior) on Jul 08, 2003 at 21:14 UTC
It can be translated as "print items one, zero, minus one and minus two of the array `['another', 'just', 'hacker' 'perl']`. The only real obfu is that instead of using the number one, I've used "zero minus minus-one" -- and instead of using zero I used the special variable `$[` which is zero unless you've changed it to something else (and as it says in the documentation "don't do that"!). It looks weird, just because there are those `[` brackets next to each other. I was experimenting with what did happen if you changed `$[` to something other than zero (can it be changed to a negative number?), and also with what was allowed in `for( n .. m )` [download] type loops (can they decrease or only increase?). “Every bit of code is either naturally related to the problem at hand, or else it's an accidental side effect of the fact that you happened to solve the problem using a digital computer.” M-J D	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: the long way round by diotalevi (Canon) on Jul 04, 2003 at 05:18 UTC
Why is this named "the long way round"?	[reply]
Re: Re: the long way round by Cody Pendant (Prior) on Jul 04, 2003 at 06:27 UTC
Just because it starts in the middle, goes left, then comes back again from the right kind of thing? It's been a long day. “Every bit of code is either naturally related to the problem at hand, or else it's an accidental side effect of the fact that you happened to solve the problem using a digital computer.” M-J D	[reply]