Thirdly:

> exists can obviously return false for elements that were never set, but it can also return true for such elements as the following demonstrates:

> 

$ perl -Mv5.14 -e'my @a; \$a[0]; say exists( $a[0] ) || 0;'
1

[download]

now that's extra weird, because introspecting with Devel::Peek reveals that the implementation is (falsely) differentiating between different kinds of 0s and NULLs.

I'm no C nor even XS hacker, but this looks like exists's understanding of NULL is just to narrow. ¹

I can't see why this shouldn't be fixable.

use Devel::Peek;

my @z;
$a = \$z[1];
say "\$z[$_] exists: ", exists( $z[$_] ) || 0 for 0..2;

say '---Dump @z';
Dump @z;

say '---Dump $z[0]';
Dump $z[0];

say '---Dump $z[1]';
Dump $z[1];

[download]

comments ### added 
$z[0] exists: 0
$z[1] exists: 1
$z[2] exists: 0
---Dump @z
SV = PVAV(0x2770318) at 0x27a4930
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = ()
  ARRAY = 0x2787080
  FILL = 1
  MAX = 3
  FLAGS = (REAL)
  Elt No. 0
  SV = 0                           ### 0 
  Elt No. 1
  SV = NULL(0x0) at 0x2783d70      
    REFCNT = 2
    FLAGS = ()
---Dump $z[0]
SV = NULL(0x0) at 0x7a91d0         ### NULL (WTF?)
  REFCNT = 2147483641
  FLAGS = (READONLY,PROTECT)
---Dump $z[1]
SV = NULL(0x0) at 0x2783d70
  REFCNT = 2
  FLAGS = ()

[download]

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

¹) a null understanding ;-)

In reply to Re^6: Using exists to check element in array by LanX
in thread Using exists to check element in array by david

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.