I agree with your concern that there's not a central location where this is explained.

In the interests of starting a partial list:

  • Perl Glossary: Autovivification
  • Perl Ref: Using References
  • Perl Ref Tut (buried in an example)
  • Exists function (example)
  • Open and related functions that use file handles

    • That's about it!

    So it certainly warrants its own section, covering the pitfalls, and referencing other Perl documentation elements that relate to it.

    -QM
    --
    Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

    In reply to Re: Autovivification Oddity by QM
    in thread Autovivification Oddity by haukex

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