Eh?

I was always told that "complex" structures (anything other than a "simple" array or hash - and the OP is talking about an AoA) got flattened, and that its integrity wasn't necessarily preserved when it was passed into and out of a sub.

I'm quite happy to be wrong, though .. that's been a pet peeve of mine with Perl for *ages* ... *grin* ..

My thinking this (probably) comes from perlsub ..

Perl sees all arguments as one big, long, flat parameter list in @_. Like the flattened incoming parameter list, the return list is also flattened on return.

I read this as saying that if I have a crazily bizarre structure, such as an AoA or AoH or whatever, its integrity and structure will not necessarily be preserved - epecially not if it becomes a simple list of scalars.

Can anyone clarify this? I'm gonna play with some code, see what happens ..

Update: Ok, so code playing proves I'm completely wrong ... all kudos to broquaint - I've learnt something completely new today .. and got rid of a pet hate :)

-- Foxcub
A friend is someone who can see straight through you, yet still enjoy the view. (Anon)

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Passing Array of Arrays by Tanalis
in thread Passing Array of Arrays by marctwo

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.