in reply to Re: Operator Associative in Perl
in thread Operator Associative in Perl
I find the difference between $a++ and ++$a as subroutine arguments to be quite interesting/surprising.
In a subroutine the elements of @_ are usually aliases to the arguments of the subroutine call, allowing the subroutine to modify the caller's variables.
In the case of ++$a, the corresponding element of @_ is a reference to the same IV as $a but in the case of $a++ it is a reference to a new IV, effectively preventing the subroutine from modifying the caller's variable. In both cases the array element is an lvalue (i.e. it can be modified), but only in the case of pre-increment can the subroutine modify the caller's variable.
Using pre/post increment/decrement on an argument to a subroutine that attempts to modify that argument is not a good thing to do because the order of execution is not defined. None the less, the difference in implementation is interesting.
use strict; use warnings; use Devel::Peek; sub subx { Dump(\@_); $_[0] += 10; Dump(\@_); } my $a = 5; Dump($a); subx(++$a); Dump($a); subx($a++); Dump($a); __END__ SV = IV(0x9ba875c) at 0x9ba8760 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (PADMY,IOK,pIOK) IV = 5 SV = RV(0x9b981fc) at 0x9b981f0 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (TEMP,ROK) RV = 0x9ba8780 SV = PVAV(0x9b9928c) at 0x9ba8780 REFCNT = 3 FLAGS = () ARRAY = 0x9bacbd8 FILL = 0 MAX = 3 ARYLEN = 0x0 FLAGS = (REAL) Elt No. 0 SV = IV(0x9ba875c) at 0x9ba8760 REFCNT = 2 FLAGS = (PADMY,IOK,pIOK) IV = 6 SV = RV(0x9b981fc) at 0x9b981f0 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (TEMP,ROK) RV = 0x9ba8780 SV = PVAV(0x9b9928c) at 0x9ba8780 REFCNT = 3 FLAGS = () ARRAY = 0x9bacbd8 FILL = 0 MAX = 3 ARYLEN = 0x0 FLAGS = (REAL) Elt No. 0 SV = IV(0x9ba875c) at 0x9ba8760 REFCNT = 2 FLAGS = (PADMY,IOK,pIOK) IV = 16 SV = IV(0x9ba875c) at 0x9ba8760 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (PADMY,IOK,pIOK) IV = 16 SV = RV(0x9b981fc) at 0x9b981f0 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (TEMP,ROK) RV = 0x9b98340 SV = PVAV(0x9b9923c) at 0x9b98340 REFCNT = 3 FLAGS = () ARRAY = 0x9bb7888 FILL = 0 MAX = 3 ARYLEN = 0x0 FLAGS = (REAL) Elt No. 0 SV = IV(0x9bb541c) at 0x9bb5420 REFCNT = 2 FLAGS = (PADTMP,IOK,pIOK) IV = 16 SV = RV(0x9b981fc) at 0x9b981f0 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (TEMP,ROK) RV = 0x9b98340 SV = PVAV(0x9b9923c) at 0x9b98340 REFCNT = 3 FLAGS = () ARRAY = 0x9bb7888 FILL = 0 MAX = 3 ARYLEN = 0x0 FLAGS = (REAL) Elt No. 0 SV = IV(0x9bb541c) at 0x9bb5420 REFCNT = 2 FLAGS = (PADTMP,IOK,pIOK) IV = 26 SV = IV(0x9ba875c) at 0x9ba8760 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (PADMY,IOK,pIOK) IV = 17
|
|---|