Syntactically and semantically, the two are interchangeable. There are no reasons for requiring the use of one over the other.

Which makes any attempt to convey some meaning through given uses of the two at best subliminal. At worst ...

I mean, there are three sections in the parenthesis

So you choose to make the C-style for loop look difference from the others because it looks different? No, that doesn't make much sense to me.

Good grief!! Even the Perl documentation makes the distinction between the two: For Loops and Foreach Loops. Yes, it does go on to mention that "foreach" is a synonym for "for", but the documentation starts off by using "for" to describe the C-style form of "(;;)" and "foreach" to describe the Perl-style form of "$var (list)". And that includes separate, distinct entries in the table of contents -- i.e. they are listed as two different styles of looping, which is only clarified under "Foreach". So I'm perfectly in line with how the Perl documentation describes them. Not saying you guys are wrong -- but the original point was that it's a stylistic choice.

My point about discouraging "for" loops was if the two were actually two distinct looping styles (i.e. that "foreach" was not a synonym for "for", so that "for" could only be used for C-style for loops). Sorry if there was any confusion over that.

Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks

Good grief!! Even the Perl documentation makes the distinction between the two:

I didn't say what you do makes no sense; I said the reason you gave makes no sense. It doesn't mean there are no other reasons that do make sense.

but the documentation starts off by using "for" to describe the C-style form of "(;;)

C-style loops are almost always used as for loops, so that's pretty accurate (although they are really just while loops.)

and "foreach" to describe the Perl-style form of "$var (list)".

Actually, the documentation isn't as clear as your purport it to be. It appears that section was written to describe that syntax, but it says "The foreach loop iterates over a normal list value and sets the variable VAR to be each element of the list in turn." for VAR (EXPR..EXPR) doesn't match that definition.

The Perl documentation is one of those that seem to forget about Perl-style for loops.

So I'm perfectly in line with how the Perl documentation describes them.

But I'm asking about that case that's not documented! So we've looped back to here.

My point about discouraging "for" loops was if the two were actually two distinct looping styles

If the two were actually two distinct looping styles, ...? Part of that sentence seems to be missing.