To continue the explaination by Japhy, I think you're confused that the return value is the same as the stuff between the angles. It's returning the file name, and since there are no wildcards, what else can it find?! It's not returning a fully-quallified name with path information added, if that's what you mean. You're essentially doing an "exists" test on that one file -- it will return that name back if it exists, undef otherwise, and meanwhile keep a persistant state.

I don't know what to make of the persistant state. If you change the current working directory, how does one reset the state? If it contains a variable, and the variable changes, how do you know when to continue or start over?

—John

In reply to Re: Fileglob in scalar context question by John M. Dlugosz
in thread Fileglob in scalar context question by scain

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.