why this throws exception ... my @b = @$a; ... and why this one works smoothly ... foreach (@$a) { }

I hope that my earlier explanations, about why my $x; my $y = @$x; throws an error but my $x; @$x = (); does not, make sense? Do you see how in the second example, @$x is in "lvalue context", that is, it is on the left-hand side of the assignment?

foreach is kind of special, it aliases the loop variable to the things it is looping over. In the following, see how $val becomes an alias for each of the variables in turn and the original values $x,$y,$z are modified via $val:

my ($x,$y,$z) = ('x','yy','zzz');
for my $val ($x,$y,$z) {
    $val = $val . length($val);
}
print "$x/$y/$z\n";  # prints "x1/yy2/zzz3"

[download]

Loosely speaking, this is why the variables foreach (...) is looping over are treated by Perl as if they were on the left-hand side of an assignment (lvalue context), and why the autovivification behavior is applied to them.

In reply to Re^7: Array dereference in foreach() by haukex
in thread Array dereference in foreach() by pme

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.