Hi, I realize you're not a programmer, but I'm curious where you've picked up the use of <...> in array context as in: 
@A = <DAT>;

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It's not wrong, but I've seen it used quite a bit by new perl programmers, and I wonder why they prefer that to using the while (<DAT>) {...} construct. In fact, often I see <...> used in array context immediately followed by a foreach loop iterating over the array, and it makes me cringe.

Like I said, it's not a wrong practice. It can be more wasteful of memory than a while loop, but on today's hardware that's probably not a big concern. Is it just conceptually easier to think in terms of "read the data into an array and then iterate over the array" as opposed to "read in a line and process it"? In most other programming languages the while loop approach is the only way to process a file a line at a time, so I wonder why I see this practice so much.

Anyway, any insight into why you decided to use @A = <DAT>, where you've seen it or picked it up from would be helpful. Thanks!

In reply to Re: Using a loop to process multiple files by pc88mxer
in thread Using a loop to process multiple files by Anonymous Monk

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