Perl has a concept called "context". Different functions or constructs return different things depending on whether they're called in a list (or array) context or a scalar context.

For example, you could have just said 

my $ct=@files;

[download]
and $ct would have been set correctly, because that assignment is a scalar context, and in a scalar context an array or list returns its number of elements.

Since "print" is a list context, I had to use the "scalar" operator to get the count of elements rather than the list of values.

Check out "perldoc -f scalar" and "perldoc perldata" for more information.
--
Mike

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Need counter assistance by RMGir
in thread Need counter assistance by Anonymous Monk

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.