perl that is. I've been pondering &DBI::connect() and why you have to give it strings like C:\\\\WINDOWS\\\\Desktop.

I got the first bit, that perl was interpolating the slashes when my first feeble attempt didn't work. So, &DBI::connect() really sees it as C:\\WINDOWS\\Desktop and then the function interpolates it again somewhere to get C:\WINDOWS\Desktop

That part is fairly simple, but I was happy to have figured that out on my own.

What was difficult for me to grasp was why perl interpolates the string a second time. I was still thinking in C. "Shouldn't perl just know that it's been interpolated once and not do it again? Wouldn't that be simpler?" I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. I knew there had to be a reason St. Larry did what he did. Like a flash, it just came to me last night while I was trying to sleep (avoid insomnia like the plague). If perl only interpolated strings once, you couldn't do stuff like 

$foo="can I get you a \$bar?\n";
$bar="cow";
print $foo;
$bar="chicken";
print $foo;

[download]
which is infinitly useful. And it's probably in the camel I've been reading. Perhaps it's time to RTFM again.

Update: No, I'm not. In fact, I'm rather wrong. No wonder it took so long to figure it out. And it's probably not in the camel either. Damn, I hate when that happens.

michael
the blue haired monk

In reply to I think I'm starting to get it by coolmichael

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