Why must he ask that?
Because it looks wrong. And is not accompanied by a comment warning that, though it looks wrong, it is intended. Since you ask that question, I assume you haven't any experience maintaining large legacy code bases, with minimal test coverage, where the original authors have long since left the company.

All three are equally clear at a glance (I glanced at them, equally clear, no headache)
Yet you did not notice the difference between "immoral" and "immortal"?

In reply to Re^7: Convert undef to empty string in a hash by eyepopslikeamosquito
in thread Convert undef to empty string in a hash by ibm1620

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