Another reason to avoid /^$/ is that it non-intuitively matches a single newline: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;

# only one one of these is an "empty" string right?
my @arr = ("", "\n", "dog", "cat");  

my @haslength = grep {length} @arr;
my @notempty  = grep {!/^$/} @arr;

print scalar @haslength, " members have length\n";
print scalar @notempty,  " members are not \"empty\"\n";

__END__

=head1 OUTPUT
3 members have length
2 members are not "empty"

[download]
So, /^$/ actually classifies a single newline as an "empty" string.... Sometimes thats what you want, but it isn't usually what people expect.

-Blake

In reply to Re5: No other way? by blakem
in thread No other way? by c0d34w4y

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