Re: use simple scalar names to point to specific array elements

I don't think anybody has mentioned this here, so I'll tell you now that it's possible to create an alias to a scalar using a for/foreach loop. Of course, it will ever loop only once, so it's more or less how one could write a with statement in Perl.

This will do what you ask for:

for my $fifthele($myarray[5]) {
   # inside this loop body, $fifthele is an alias to $myarray[5]
   $fifthele = 123;
}
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I wish Perl had a more appropriate keyword, then people would feel more at ease using this idiom, but let me assure you: it works fine, and it's 100% reliable.

Comment on Re: use simple scalar names to point to specific array elements Download Code

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Re: Re: use simple scalar names to point to specific array elements by ambrus (Abbot) on Dec 08, 2003 at 19:08 UTC
Foreach is a good solution as long as you don't assign the array as a whole like `@myarray= map {$_, $_+1} @myarray;`. I don't exactly know what the consequences of that are, but it's illegal, and perl can't catch it. update: Removed comma after `map{whatever}`	[reply] [d/l] [select]