Passing arrays and references to arrays

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

In sample code for Tk::MatchEntry there is code similar to this fragment:

my @choices = [qw/one two three four/];
my $me = $mw->MatchEntry(-choices => @choices);
[download]

However this also works:

my @choices = (qw/one two three four/);
my $me = $mw->MatchEntry(-choices => \@choices);
[download]

as does this:

my $choices = [qw/one two three four/];
my $me = $mw->MatchEntry(-choices => \@$choices);
[download]

While I think I understand what the last two variants are doing, I'm a little fuzzy on the first one - is it assigning an anonymous array to element 0 of @choices, or is something else going on? Is there any significant difference between each of the techniques?

Perl is Huffman encoded by design.

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Re: Passing arrays and references to arrays by davorg (Chancellor) on Aug 10, 2005 at 11:23 UTC
You're exactly right in your analysis of what is going on and I'd consider that a serious bug in the documentation of the module. It actually gets worse when you see the rest of that code sample: `my @choices = [ qw/one one.green one.blue one.yellow two.blue two.green two.cyan three.red three.white three.yellow/ ]; $mw->Button->pack(-side => 'left'); my $me = $mw->MatchEntry( -choices => @choices, -fixedwidth => 1, -ignorecase => 1, -maxheight => 5, -entercmd => sub { print "callback: -entercmd\n"; }, -onecmd => sub { print "callback: -onecmd \n"; }, -tabcmd => sub { print "callback: -tabcmd \n"; }, -zerocmd => sub { print "callback: -zerocmd \n"; }, )->pack(-side => 'left', -padx => 50);` [download] Now consider what happens if @choices contains more than one element (as you'd expect to be able to do with an array). It gets particularly bad if the array has an even number of elements - all of the following parameters will be broken. I recommend you raise a bug on rt.cpan.org and, in the meantime, make a note of the problem on AnnoCPAN. -- <http://dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club." -- Chip Salzenberg	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Passing arrays and references to arrays by GrandFather (Saint) on Aug 10, 2005 at 20:39 UTC
I already raised a bug, but without fully understanding the code. I'll go back and modify the bug report. Perl is Huffman encoded by design.	[reply]
Re: Passing arrays and references to arrays by Taulmarill (Deacon) on Aug 10, 2005 at 11:01 UTC
I'm a little fuzzy on the first one - is it assigning an anonymous array to element 0 of @choices, or is something else going on? i think so, too. but if you don't trust yourself, go on and use Data::Dumper to find out. i don't see a difference between these three techniques from the called funktion point of view. however, i would do this a bit different: `my $choices = [qw/one two three four/]; my $me = $mw->MatchEntry(-choices => $choices);` [download] or did i miss some obvious reason why that wouldn't work?	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Passing arrays and references to arrays by GrandFather (Saint) on Aug 10, 2005 at 11:10 UTC
It does work. Variant number 4 :). Guess I was array fixated by the first two variants. Perl is Huffman encoded by design.	[reply]
Re^3: Passing arrays and references to arrays by simon.proctor (Vicar) on Aug 10, 2005 at 11:46 UTC
If I understand everything correctly then I don't think this is a fourth variant: `\@$choices` [download] compared to `$choices` [download] I think you need to look up array refs and pay particular attention to referencing and dereferencing. In both cases you have an array ref, however in the first you deref it only to then make it a reference again. The second doesn't do this unneccessary merry go round. HTH.	[reply] [d/l] [select]