forcing list-context

morgon has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: forcing list-context by choroba (Cardinal) on Jan 23, 2012 at 14:40 UTC
Assign to an emtpy list: `my $entries =()= readdir $dh;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: forcing list-context by pvaldes (Chaplain) on Jan 23, 2012 at 15:09 UTC
... minus 2, unless you want to sum . and ..	[reply]
Re^2: forcing list-context by educated_foo (Vicar) on Jan 23, 2012 at 15:32 UTC
AKA the "goatse operator" -- google it!	[reply]
Re^3: forcing list-context by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Jan 23, 2012 at 19:47 UTC
goatse ... google it! NoNoNoNoNoNoNoTenThousandTimesNo!	[reply]
Re^3: forcing list-context by LanX (Saint) on Jan 23, 2012 at 16:10 UTC
I most certainly think you meant the rolex operator! ;-) Cheers Rolf	[reply]
Re: forcing list-context by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jan 23, 2012 at 20:22 UTC
Unfortunately, even the squeeze operator will still build a long list then discard it, in order to count its members. More efficient would be: `my $entries = -2; ++$entries while readdir $dh;` [download] With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday' Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. The start of some sanity?	[reply] [d/l]
Re: forcing list-context by JavaFan (Canon) on Jan 23, 2012 at 14:55 UTC
Well, scalar enforces scalar context, not list context. It's the LHS of the assignment that determines context. Putting the readdir in list context is easy: `my ($entries) = readdir $dh;` [download] Note that this not solve your problem. Because you phrased it as an XY problem. You want to solve X, you think Y solves X, so you ask how to solve Y. But Y (putting readdir in list context) does not solve X (finding out the number of entries in a directory). At least, not directly. You can assign the result of readdir to a list and put that assignment in scalar context; this will give you the number of entries in the directory. One way of doing this is: `my $entries = () = readdir $dh;` [download] The parens here indicate an (empty) list.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: forcing list-context by morgon (Priest) on Jan 23, 2012 at 15:03 UTC
Well, scalar enforces scalar context, not list context. I know that. I did not try to enforce list-context with "scalar" but by putting the expression I wanted to evaluate in list-context in parentheses.	[reply]
Re: forcing list-context by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 23, 2012 at 22:25 UTC
There are two assignment operator. The scalar assignment operator imposes scalar context on both of its operands. The list assignment operator imposes list context on both of its operands. The choice of which assignment operator is used is based on what syntax of its LHS operand. If it "looks like a list", the list assignment operator will be used. `(my $first_entry) = grep ...; my ($first_entry) = grep ...; my @entries = grep ...;` [download] Related: Mini-Tutorial: Scalar vs List Assignment Operator.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: forcing list-context by Arunbear (Prior) on Jan 23, 2012 at 17:31 UTC
Another way is to unload the readdir call into a temporary array and then call scalar on that e.g. `say scalar(@{[readdir $dh]});` [download] Though this is not as economical (memory wise) as the above solution in Re: forcing list-context	[reply] [d/l]
Re: forcing list-context by pvaldes (Chaplain) on Jan 23, 2012 at 15:22 UTC
I need to find the number of entries in a directory. `my $dir = '/home/itsme/some/dir'; chdir $dir; my $filenum = 0; my $dirnum = 0; my $linknum = 0; opendir my $dh, $dir or die $!; foreach(readdir $dh) { if (-f){$filenum++} elsif (-l){$linknum++} elsif (-d){$dirnum++} } print "You have $filenum files, $linknum links and $dirnum directories + in $dir\n"; closedir $dh;` [download] *(please note that this count is not recursive) Updated: chdir line added (random results if this line is not activated)	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: forcing list-context by jwkrahn (Abbot) on Jan 24, 2012 at 00:21 UTC
`foreach(readdir $dh) { if (-f){$filenum++} elsif (-l){$linknum++} elsif (-d){$dirnum++} }` [download] You are not going to get an accurate total because you are counting soft links in both `$filenum` and `$linknum`. That would be better as: `foreach ( readdir $dh ) { lstat; if ( -f _ ) { $filenum++ } elsif ( -l _ ) { $linknum++ } elsif ( -d _ ) { $dirnum++ } }` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]