Also take a look at push, pop, and unshift.

These are also used (though not as often as shift).
Shift is used the most because it removes and returns the next item in an array. This is ideal for subroutines, where each call to shift() gets the next argument passed to the subroutine.

Example:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

&doIt("foo", "bar", "foobar");

sub doIt() {

print shift, "\n"; #prints "foo"
print shift, "\n"; #prints "bar"
print shift, "\n"; #prints "foobar"

}
[download]

Or, if you are demented in the head, you could use pop() and pass the arguments backwards:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

&doIt("foo", "bar", "foobar");

sub doIt() {

print pop, "\n"; #prints "foobar"
print pop, "\n"; #prints "bar"
print pop, "\n"; #prints "foo"

}
[download]

Though as far as subroutines go, I have been getting used to using 'named arguments' I suppose you might call them:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

&doIt(-first => "foo", -second => "bar", -third => "foobar");

sub doIt() {
my %params = @_; #turns the passed arguments into an array

print $params{'-first'}, "\n"; #prints "foo"
print $params{'-second'}, "\n"; #prints "bar"
print $params{'-third'}, "\n"; #prints "foobar"

}
[download]

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.