Re: WARNING!! Possible Brainbench spoilers (do NOT read unless you've taken and passed the cert)

a) Perl Idioms Explained - @ary = $str =~ m/(stuff)/g covers this but in essence you are assigning the return value of m// (yes /.../ == m/.../ ) to a scalar. What is the return value? See perlre but it is 1 (true) if there is a match and false (null string) if there is no match. $data *is not altered* - it was never set to 'Hello World' due to precedence ie the expression parses as $data = ( 'string' =~ m/stuff/ );

b) BEGIN executes at the begining ie compile time before CHECK, INIT and of course END. These four block types run in this order:

BEGIN - Runs ASAP (as soon as parsed) whenever encountered during compilation, before compiling the rest of the file.
CHECK - Runs when compilation is complete, but before the program starts.
INIT - Runs at the beginning of execution right before the main flow of your program starts.
END - Runs at the end of execution right after the program finishes.

Congrats on the payrise. Who says these sorts of tests are pointless!

cheers

tachyon

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Re^2: WARNING!! Possible Brainbench spoilers (do NOT read unless you've taken and passed the cert) by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Jul 02, 2004 at 11:49 UTC
That is one of the goofiest context-things I've ever seen. Must mean why if you want the number of matches, you need to do `my $data = () = "Hello World" =~ /(.) (.)/;` [download] ------ We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age. Then there are Damian modules.... sigh* ... that's not about being less-lazy -- that's about being on some really good drugs -- you know, there is no spoon.* - flyingmoose I shouldn't have to say this, but any code, unless otherwise stated, is untested	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: WARNING!! Possible Brainbench spoilers (do NOT read unless you've taken and passed the cert) by tachyon (Chancellor) on Jul 02, 2004 at 22:55 UTC
Perhaps it is because of the difficulty in defining matches? For example I would call this example one match that returns a two element array ( $1, $2 ). I might well expect it to return 1, you evidently expect 2. I do agree that it is non intuitive. cheers tachyon	[reply]