matching strings

natty_dread has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: matching strings by Happy-the-monk (Canon) on Jun 16, 2004 at 15:35 UTC
Why won't this code return when the scalars don't match? Because you used a "`=`" instead of an "`eq`": You tested wether you could set `$a` to the value of `$aa` instead of making a comparison. See `perldoc perlintro` and `perldoc perlop` for more. Cheers, Sören	[reply]
Re: matching strings by borisz (Canon) on Jun 16, 2004 at 15:36 UTC
You assign $aa to $a inside the if so they are equal. To compare them use `$a eq $aa` for strings or `$a == $aa` for numbers. Boris	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: matching strings by Old_Gray_Bear (Bishop) on Jun 16, 2004 at 15:35 UTC
Try `if ($a cmp $aa) ....` [download] = -- assignment == - numeric comparison cmp string comparison ---- I Go Back to Sleep, Now. OGB	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: matching strings by hardburn (Abbot) on Jun 16, 2004 at 16:12 UTC
That's not what `cmp` is for. It's the string equvilent of `<=>` and is meant for use in sorting operations. In this case, it won't work at all as shown, because it returns 0 when the two strings are equal (`unless( $a cmp $aa)` would work, but there is a better way). What the OP really wants is `eq`. ---- send money to your kernel via the boot loader.. This and more wisdom available from Markov Hardburn.	[reply] [d/l] [select]