Re^4: Win32/Linux portability

It's been a year, but I still don't get that abbreviated syntax. For example, today I found out that I can easily split strings at each point using

@foo=split(/\./,$bar);
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But to split at whitespace I can use

@foo=split(" ",$bar);
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Why is that and what does it mean? I really don't get it, why doesn't

@foo=split(".",$bar);
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work?

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Re^5: Win32/Linux portability by jdporter (Paladin) on Oct 01, 2012 at 19:54 UTC
Please read the documentation for split. Twice. Then if you still have trouble, come back and ask.	[reply]
Re^6: Win32/Linux portability by thelycaeum (Initiate) on Oct 01, 2012 at 20:13 UTC
I read it more than twice, before. It says "However, this special treatment can be avoided by specifying the pattern / / instead of the string " " , thereby allowing only a single space character to be a separator." To me that means that for one or more ".", "." should work as well, or is there something special about a "." compared to a " "?	[reply]
Re^7: Win32/Linux portability by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Oct 01, 2012 at 20:26 UTC
or is there something special about a "." compared to a " " No. The latter is special, the former is not. When a single space is used as the first argument to split, it is treated specially, and is substituted for by a regex that is (approximately) equivalent to `/\s+/`. This is a convenience token for a common case and (approximately) acts like a similar construct in another language. There is no such special case for '.'. 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. RIP Neil Armstrong	[reply] [d/l]
Re^7: Win32/Linux portability by jdporter (Paladin) on Oct 01, 2012 at 21:00 UTC
To me that means that ... No. Don't extrapolate from what the doc says. It says a special case is "when the PATTERN is either omitted or a literal string composed of a single space character (such as `' '` or `"\x20"`)" `'.'` is not a space character.	[reply] [d/l] [select]