Beginning with v5.6.0, this operator is implemented using the standard "File::Glob" extension. See File::Glob for details, including "bsd_glob" which does not treat whitespace as a pattern separator.
When I look at File::Glob, I don't see it promising to do "while magic". I see it "returning a list". If the core glob took advantage of this functionality to determine the list it is ready to do "while magic" over, that is a decision made by the core, not (necessarily) a requirement on File::Glob. Regardless of how File::Glob might have been "improved" in the v5.6.0 era, it has been behaving in the stated way since then, and it is not "trivial" to modify that behavior now. That could break existing code, and the porters are notoriously (and justifiably) reluctant to do that.

I agree that emphasizing the absence of "while magic" in the File::Glob documentation could be helpful. I confess to having wondered what was causing the problem with gulliver's code, until I recalled that core glob can do what it does only by "magic". I'm not a big fan of "magic", in part because of problems like this.

In reply to Re^3: File::Glob infinate loop with while loop unlike core glob function by jpl
in thread File::Glob infinite loop with while loop unlike core glob function by Gulliver

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.