You misunderstand.

No, the list assigned to is not %return. You are taking a hash slice. The hash as a whole is nowhere to be seen in this assignment. I get the feeling that you haven't understood exactly what taking a slice does.

Yes, the list assigned to is on the left hand of the assignment operator.

I'm not sure which second code sample you are talking about.

You are not seeing the list assigned from. You are seeing what the list you assigned to evaluates to, which in this case is 1, 2, 3, 4. The distinction is subtle and may be confusing but you are indeed getting the list assigned to:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

my %return;
my @value = qw( foo bar baz quux );

$_ = uc $_
    for @return{ qw( a b c d ) } = @value;

print Dumper( \%return ), Dumper( \@value );

=begin output
$VAR1 = {
          'c' => 'BAZ',
          'a' => 'FOO',
          'b' => 'BAR',
          'd' => 'QUUX'
        };
$VAR1 = [
          'foo',
          'bar',
          'baz',
          'quux'
        ];

[download]

As you can see, the $_ = uc $_ assignment changed the values in the hash. If you were getting the list assigned from, it would have changed the values in @value.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^3: hash slice ? No thanks, I'm about to return... by Aristotle
in thread hash slice ? No thanks, I'm about to return... by leriksen

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