You will get a different value for $cnt because you are actually extending the array each time.
From Perl 5.6.0, delete may be used on an array element. It sets the element to its undefined state, but does not shift the index of the ones after them - use splice for that. As with a hash, delete returns the deleted value.
This does not buy you much over using undef, in fact undef can be more efficient, but delete can be used on an array slice, which undef cannot.
The function exists can also be used on an array element, but not on a slice. The result given by exists is subtle. If the element was delete'd then both defined and exists will return FALSE. If the element was set to undef, then defined returns FALSE but exists returns TRUE!

In reply to Re: using function delete with arrays by cdarke
in thread using function delete with arrays by locked_user rumos-er

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