Actualy you don't have a syntax error. Just a bit of unintended code. ;) I beleive perl is reading it like below..... It isn't hung, just taking a long time to compute all the combinations between pfo and pct_pfo which is a rather large number i'm guessing.

#!perl
$rec = {
    avg_outst => pfo...pct_pfo,
    ' ',
};
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I think you're on the right track, as are the others in this thread who noted that ... is a range operator. But the question still is, why does it not even compile? I can understand it taking forever to execute, but not even perl -c or B::Deparse return. The code's not in a BEGIN block or any such.

Do not rebuke them with harsh words ... but rather lead them gently - with URLs - so that they may learn wisdom.

Here is an odd piece in deed. Apparently it is dependent on the actual names you are using in that they contain a _. I have no idea why but check this out.

C:\Perl\Tests>perl -c -e"$var = { aa...aaaa}"
-e syntax OK

C:\Perl\Tests>perl -c -e"$var = { aa...aaaa_}"

C:\Perl\Tests>perl -c -e"$var = { 'aa'...'aaaa_'}"

C:\Perl\Tests>
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The last two had to be killed as they consumed all the processors power. The first flew through in no time, obviously not computing. So some little thing is causeing the _ to make it actualy execute that code.

BTW C:\Perl\Tests>perl -c -e"'aa'...'aaaa_'" without the hash ref doesn't cause any delay, and checks out perfectly.


___________
Eric Hodges

To add to the detective work, changing to

#!/usr/bin/perl

$rec = {
    avg_outst => pct_pf...     # BAD
    pct_pfo   => ' ',
};
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gives me

C:\Perl>perl -MO=Deparse testhang.pl
$rec = {'avg_outst', 'pct_pf', ' '};
testhang.pl syntax OK
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At a guess it is trying to create the result list at compile time.

/J\

This also causes my perl (ActivePerl v5.6.1) to hang in the compile phase.

By the way, ... is a Perl operator. Since it can be found in code, and since it's often found in messages and comments, I usually avoid using ... to note places which need editing. (I use ~~~, but that has a chance of producing valid Perl code.)

Yikes! Yeah it hangs for me too:

[cfreak ~]$ perl -v
This is perl, v5.8.5 built for i386-linux-thread-multi
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The box is Fedora 3.

It might have something to with '..' being the range operator?

 $ perl -MO=Deparse -e '@x=(0...9)'
@x = (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9);
-e syntax OK
 $
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Yah, that's what I kind of put together from the rest of this thread. If Perl thinks both ends of the ... or .. range operators are constants, it tries to gen up the list at compile time. A bad idea when the list is potentially gigantic.

Do not rebuke them with harsh words ... but rather lead them gently - with URLs - so that they may learn wisdom.

No, it's an even better idea to do it at compile time if the list is large. The larger the list, the larger the potential savings by precomputing it once at compile time.

print 0...1; print "\n";
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01
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I consider this a missed optimisation opportunity in perl.