in reply to Re^4: re-key a hash (not so clear)
in thread re-key a hash

I'm not sure what strange interpretation you are doing.

In the first case, the knowledge of the left-hand side used in evaluating the right-hand side is purely an optimisation--effectively, extended context--which doesn't change the semantic outcome of the statement. Only the performance.

And that's all I'm talking about doing.

Your split example makes no sense. Here's an example that makes sense:

my @h; my @i= (0..1); @h[@i]= split / /, "This is a test case"; print "(@h)\n"; __END__ Output: (This is)

The only difference with my proposed change is that split can be optimized in this case. No difference in output.

You'll have to actually describe how you thought I was proposing that refined context change outcome. I'm proposing that the evalation order be changed which would change the results of statements that depend on the evaluation order, obviously. But the refinement of the "context" from "list, unspecified size" to "list, size of $N" for those rare operations that care about such things is part of the justification for this change, not something that will change outcomes itself.

- tye        

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Re^6: re-key a hash (unclear)
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Aug 03, 2004 at 21:36 UTC

    Okay. The example was bad. The intent was to show that if the value of something that is used on the right-hand side of the assignment, that can affect the semantic outcome of the statement, can be changed by the left-hand side of the assignment; then pre-evaluating that value would be an unsafe optimisation:

    (crudely) adapting your example:

    my @h; my @i= (0..1); @h[@i]= split //, $i[ 2 ]= "03"; print "(@h)\n"; __END__ Use of uninitialized value in join or string at P:\test\junk.pl line 4 +. Use of uninitialized value in join or string at P:\test\junk.pl line 4 +. (0 3 )

    This shows that the value of @i used on the left-hand side is not evaluated until after the right-hand side has been completed.

    I contend that this is the same logic as happens currently with

    my %h; @h{ map{ int rand 100 } 1..4 } = 'A'..'D'; print 'Before:', %h, $/; @h{ 1 .. keys %h } = delete @h{ keys %h }; print 'After: ', %h, $/; __END__ Before:25A39D0C23B After:

    The reason no output is produce after the assignment is because the value of scalar keys %h used on the left-hand side is not determined until after the right-hand side has be completed.

    Hence, the delete has taken place, it's value 0, the range generates an empty list and %h is empty.

    I (mis?)read your "it's a bug" post to mean that you felt that the extent of the range should be determined before the delete took place, so that the result of the statemant was as if

    my %h; @h{ map{ int rand 100 } 1..4 } = 'A'..'D'; print 'Before:', %h, $/; my $keys = keys %h; @h{ 1 .. $keys } = delete @h{ keys %h }; print 'After: ', %h, $/; __END__ Before:6D59B60A75C After: 4C1D3A2B

    However, looking back I see that I had missed the (somewhat detached) smiley, and misinterpreted your irony. So...no harm done.


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