in reply to Re^2: scanning hash
in thread scanning hash

Undefs and empty strings are equal. The OP wanted to check if all values are equal.

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Re^4: scanning hash
by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Aug 01, 2004 at 15:20 UTC
    Oh dear. Next thing we will argue about whether the equality of two values can be determined by the equality of their string representations. :-)

    Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]
      (puzzled) If you really want...I'll start us off.

      You can't determine the equality of two values from the equality of their string representations.

[reply]

        To illustrate the point:

        $ perl -le '$a = $b = "foo"; print \$a eq \$b ? "true" : "false"'
false

        [download]

        The strings are identical, but they're two different strings. The string representations of references to them differ. Are they equal or not? This is a question of semantics that you can't answer without additional context.

        Indeed, if we just accept the string representation as the universal measure of equality, then ambrus is right: the empty string and undef are equal, and thus all of my arguing has been moot. However, experience tells me it is a prudent bet to assume that in most situations, undef needs to be treated differently from an empty string.

        Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]
[d/l]

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