In my opinion, what would make the puzzle much more interesting would be to require single expression evaluation as your solution does but prohibit the use of eval $string.
You went to a school where you didn't have to program a calculator in your first year? I have a different opinion - writing an expression evaluator is boring, and it would be a reimplementation of functionality that perl already provides.

I like string eval. I wish every programming language had such functionality.

Perl --((8:>*

In reply to Re^4: Happy 2006 by Perl Mouse
in thread Happy 2006 by Perl Mouse

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