Re: Scalar refs, aliasing, and recursion weirdness.

I don't know why, but on a hunch, I tried this change:

#! perl -slw
use strict;

sub recurse {
    print ">> '${ $_[ 0 ] }'";
    if( length ${ $_[ 0 ] } ) {
       #recurse( \            substr( ${ $_[ 0 ] }, 1, -1 )   );  #old
        recurse( \( my $boo = substr( ${ $_[ 0 ] }, 1, -1 ) ) );  #new
        ${ $_[ 0 ] } = " ( ${ $_[ 0 ] } ) ";
    }
    print "<< '${ $_[ 0 ] }'";
    return;
}

my $str = 'aaaaaaaaaa';
recurse \$str;

print $str;
[download]

and it worked. I leave it up to you to explain it (cause I'm going home!)

I'm don't think this is the output you want, because it would be a very convoluted way of getting it. But you didn't specify what you wanted.

Comment on Re: Scalar refs, aliasing, and recursion weirdness. Download Code

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Re^2: Scalar refs, aliasing, and recursion weirdness. by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Feb 04, 2005 at 22:54 UTC
and it worked. Actually not--unless your results are different to mine? It only retains the last change and I want to retain the accumulated changes. `P:\test>junk >> 'aaaaaaaaaa' >> 'aaaaaaaa' >> 'aaaaaa' >> 'aaaa' >> 'aa' >> '' << '' << ' ( aa ) ' << ' ( aaaa ) ' << ' ( aaaaaa ) ' << ' ( aaaaaaaa ) ' << ' ( aaaaaaaaaa ) ' ( aaaaaaaaaa )` [download] Examine what is said, not who speaks. Silence betokens consent. Love the truth but pardon error.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Scalar refs, aliasing, and recursion weirdness. by ikegami (Patriarch) on Feb 04, 2005 at 22:57 UTC
Maybe you want `${ $_[ 0 ] } = " ( $boo ) ";` or `if( length ${ $_[ 0 ] } > 2) { my ($pre, $mid, $post) = /^(.)(.*)(.)$/; recurse( $mid ); ${ $_[ 0 ] } = "$pre ( $mid ) $post"; }` [download] Just guessing, cause you didn't specify what output you want.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Scalar refs, aliasing, and recursion weirdness. by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Feb 04, 2005 at 23:23 UTC
I've updated the OP to clarify my expectations. The whole point is to modify the referent in-place. The selection for the substring reference used by the recursion is far more complicated in the real situation. The point of my question is not really "How to get this output", but more "Why do changes that get made during recursion get unwound, when the entity being modified is (relatively speaking) static." Examine what is said, not who speaks. Silence betokens consent. Love the truth but pardon error.	[reply]