I ran across this is code, and while my first guess was that it shouldn't work, it works well. I am just trying to wrap my head around why is does.

use strict;
use warnings;

my $current_index = 12;
my %columns = (
    'alpha'   => 1,
    'bravo'   => 2,
    'charlie' => 3,
    'delta'   => 4,
);

foreach my $k ( keys %columns ) {
    ( $current_index =~ $columns{$k} )
        ? print "$k matches\n"
        : print "$k does not match\n";
}
[download]

Output:

bravo matches
charlie does not match
delta does not match
alpha matches
[download]

I am trying to grasp why this works, why word perl automagically interpret the scalar as a regex?

---

In reply to Regex vs. string by BaldPenguin

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