That is one way. It assigns the list of values contained in @look_for back to the original scalar variables.

Another way is using references. 


# Assign to @look_for, references to $name, etc.
# Note:  \($x, $y, $z) is the same as (\$x, \$y, \$z)
# because the reference symbol binds to each element in
# the list.

my @look_for = \( $name, $nerd, $noodle, $froodle,);

foreach my $item ( @look_for ) {

    # notice how I dereference $item so that we get
    # to what it points to.

    $$item =~ s/$i_seek/ /g;

}

[download]

That will do what he's looking for, unless, of course, we've now broken other uses of @look_for in his code where his code might be expecting @look_for to contain scalar values rather than references to scalar variables.

Dave

"If I had my life to do over again, I'd be a plumber." -- Albert Einstein

In reply to Re: Re: Re: array confusion by davido
in thread array confusion by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.