In C and in Perl, the result of a true conditional is 1. EDIT: In Perl, false can be 0 or "" depending on context. Or not. I don't like this. /edit

When I'm doing checks on a bunch of values, if I used the implicit return from a is_defined() function, I can only have a boolean in response. If I want multiple types of responses I must use an explicit equals. Even in the boolean context, nearly all my conditions have some sort of equality test - even in the case of less than or greater than. To not have that form is an exception when reviewing the code, I have to stop and say "wait, what is the function supposed to be returning? a number? a string? a reference/pointer?".

You even state that saying is_five()==1 is somehow not intuitive, when that is literally what your is doing, it is checking the truthfulness of whether that number is five.

In reply to Re^4: Regex result being defined when it shouldn't be(?) by chenhonkhonk
in thread Regex result being defined when it shouldn't be(?) by chenhonkhonk

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