No. $i gets assigned 0, 1 and 2 - indexes into the two arrays, not the contents of the elements of @letters. 0 .. $#letters is the list context range operator and generates a list containing the integers from 0 to the index of the last element in @letters (0, 1 and 2 for this example).

The code depends on elements of @blankwords being set to 0 until they are assigned a correct letter. The test could be rewritten if ($blankword[$n] eq $letters[$i]) { to make an explicit check that the correct letter has been guessed.

I think now I am understanding the script. However, I ended up commenting out the @guesses portion (mainly because I think @guesses is useless part and script still works)..
Was author wrong to put that code there(since it does nothing?).


#!/usr/bin/perl -w

   @words = qw( hi no );
   @guesses=();
   $wrong=0;

   $choice=$words[rand @words];
   $hangman="0-|--<";

  @letters=split(//, $choice);
  print "\@letters is @letters\n";
  @hangman=split(//, $hangman);
  @blankword=(0) x scalar(@letters);
  print "\@blankword is @blankword\n";
  OUTER:
      while ($wrong<@hangman) {
          print "whielloop\n";
          foreach $i (0..$#letters) {
                  if ($blankword[$i]) {
                          print $blankword[$i];
                  } else {
                          print "-";
                  }
          }
          print "\n";
          if ($wrong) {
                  print @hangman[0..$wrong-1]
          }
          print "\n\n\n\n Your Guess: ";
          $guess=<STDIN>;  chomp $guess;
         # foreach(@guesses) {
         #         print "foreach loop\n";
         #         print "\$guess is $guess\n";
         #         print "\$\_ is $_\n";
         #         next OUTER if ($_ eq $guess);
         # }
         # print "\@guesses is @guesses\n";
         # $guess_scalar = "@guesses";
         # print "\$guess_scalar is $guess_scalar\n";
          #$guesses[@guesses]=$guess;
         # push @guesses, $guess;
          $right=0;
          for ($i=0; $i<@letters; $i++) {
                 print "\$i is $i\n";
                 print "in the forloop\n";
                  if ($letters[$i] eq $guess) {
                          $blankword[$i]=$guess;
                           print "\$blankword\[\$i\] is $blankword[$i]
+\n";
                          $right=1;
                  }
          }
          $wrong++ if (not $right);
            print "\$wrong is $wrong\n";
          if (join('', @blankword) eq $choice) {
                  print "IF loop\n";
                  print "You got it right!\n";
                  exit;
[download]

@guesses and the next OUTER were making it ignore guesses that had already been given instead of counting them as right or wrong. It would have been better to use a %guesses hash for that:

          ...
          $guess=<STDIN>;  chomp $guess;
          next if $guesses{$guess}++;
          $right=0;
          ...
[download]

but this program seems blithely ignorant of the existence of hashes.

If you feel daring, take a look at the severely undercommented word twist for a more hash-ridden implementation of a word game.