Good evening Monks,

I have a very low level in Perl and I am trying to do something like: 

$i=0;
print 'first=' , $i, ', ' if ($i++);
print 'middle=', $i, ', ' if ($i++);
print 'last='  , $i, ', ' if ($i++);
print 'beyond=', $i if $i++;

[download]
I was expecting something like (as '++' is AFTER the variable):
middle=1, last=2, beyond=3
While, instead, I get:
middle=2, last=3, beyond=4

I changed my code (first line only) to be:
print 'first=' , $i, ', ' if (++$i); and I get:
first=1, middle=2, last=3, beyond=4
which only adds to my confusion.

Can someone help me and tell me why the $var++ and the ++$var syntaxes do not produce what I was thinking right according to what (I understand to be) are the rules for the ++Var and Var++ syntaxes ? Meaning:
a) null 1 2 3
b) 1 1 2 3

TIA
Gilles

PS: I'm using activeState perl 5.014 under W7/64

In reply to Auto-increment behaviour, is this normal and why? by Gilles Maisonneuve

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.