No, at least part of your testing was flawed. "0 ", "0\n", "00", and even "0.0" are all true values. The only false values are "" and "0", period. Boolean context does not first convert the scalar to a number. undef is a special case of "" and numeric 0 is a special case "0" (or at least that is one way to think of it).

The real false values are "" and numeric 0 but "0" is also considered false because otherwise it would get really confusing. (: But there is no way for a numeric zero to get silently promoted to include a string value like "0 " or "0\n". Numeric zero always becomes simply "0", so we don't need to make any other strings false.

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

In reply to (tye)Re: Why isn't "0\n" false? by tye
in thread When does $_ get used? by elbie

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