pmarcoen:

The statement isn't necessarily wrong--perl does automatic conversions between numbers and strings, and strings that don't "look like a number" get converted to 0 when you treat them like a number. After all, in a data stream, there may be multiple different data types that you would want to handle differently without lots of explicit type conversions and such. (If you're a fan of explicit conversions, perhaps you should be a Java programmer? </joke>)

Here's a simple (useless!) example of treating different types of data differently:

$ cat 938362.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Scalar::Util qw(looks_like_number);

my $t;
while ($t = <DATA>) {
    $t=~s/\s+$//;
    print "\ninput = '$t'\n";
    if (looks_like_number($t)) {
        print "looks numeric\n";
        if ($t == 0) {
            print "Gotta have somethin' if ya wanna be with me\n";
        }
        else {
            print "There are $t ways to leave your lover\n";
        }
    }
    else {
        print "non-numeric\n";
        if ($t eq "Godzilla") {
            print "Oh, no! There goes Tokyo, go go $t!\n";
        }
        elsif ($t =~ /horse/i) {
            print "A horse is a horse of course, of course\n";
        }
        else {
            print "insert song lyric here...\n";
        }
    }
}
__DATA__
Godzilla
50
A horse of a different color
0
zebra
$ perl 938362.pl

input = 'Godzilla'
non-numeric
Oh, no! There goes Tokyo, go go Godzilla!

input = '50'
looks numeric
There are 50 ways to leave your lover

input = 'A horse of a different color'
non-numeric
A horse is a horse of course, of course

input = '0'
looks numeric
Gotta have somethin' if ya wanna be with me

input = 'zebra'
non-numeric
insert song lyric here...
[download]

Since using text strings where numbers are expected is a common logic error, the warnings package tells you when you try to convert a string that doesn't look like a number into a number.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

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