in reply to Re: Surprise: scalar(($x, $y) = split)
in thread Surprise: scalar(($x, $y) = split)

It's not the parenthesis that helps there but

the chomp. 
$ perl -e 'warn 0+(($x, $y) = split " ", "foo bar\n");'
3 at -e line 1.
$ perl -e 'warn 0+(($x, $y) = split " ", "foo bar");'
2 at -e line 1.

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Re^3: Surprise: scalar(($x, $y) = split)
by roboticus (Chancellor) on Oct 28, 2011 at 14:21 UTC

    ambrus:

    Ha, ha--color me surprised as well!

    Corrected example:

    $ cat foo.pl
use strict;
use warnings;
my $x; my $y;
while (<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    2==(($x, $y) = split " ") or print "wrong number of fields\n";
    print "<$_>, <$x>, <$y>\n";
}
__DATA__
FOO BAR BAZ PLOVE
FOO BAR BAZ
FOO BAR
BAZ
$ perl foo.pl
wrong number of fields
<FOO BAR BAZ PLOVE>, <FOO>, <BAR>
wrong number of fields
<FOO BAR BAZ>, <FOO>, <BAR>
<FOO BAR>, <FOO>, <BAR>
wrong number of fields
Use of uninitialized value $y in concatenation (.) or string at foo.pl
+ line 7, <DATA> line 4.
<BAZ>, <BAZ>, <>

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    ...roboticus

    When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

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