Re^2: Access elements of $

I'm a bit puzzled now. I tried your solution and it works fine but so does this

$id = 1; # <--- semicolon was missing
open(MYFILE,"/var/tmp/mylist.dat") or die "Cant open mylist.dat"

while (<MYFILE>) { # <--- wrong file handle fixed
      chomp;
      split /,/;
      die "Request Id $id already present in file\n" if $_[0] eq $id;
}

close MYFILE;
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What is the difference in using an array or doing it as above ? I thought split will split a string into an array of strings anyway. Hence I'm a bit puzzled as to why I explicitly have to use an array as per your example. Is this better programming practice ?

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Re^3: Access elements of $_ by shmem (Chancellor) on Aug 12, 2010 at 14:29 UTC
Hence I'm a bit puzzled as to why I explicitly have to use an array as per your example. Is this better programming practice ? Yes, it is - and precisely because you are puzzled :-) As I said above, split by default splits into the array `@_` whose first element is `$_[0]` - and it's a deprecated usage because it leads people to be puzzled, and because `@_` also is the argument array inside subroutines; so using implicit split inside subs is probably a bad idea.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Access elements of $_ by Anonymous Monk on Aug 12, 2010 at 14:24 UTC
Oops just realised you answered that by saying it's deprecated. Apologies I should have seen this earlier	[reply]