It makes sense that == should not work for references. After all, references are scalars. == is an arithmetic operator that interprets comparable scalars as numbers.

Using arithmetic operators on pointers is a form of pointer arithmetic in C.

Perl, however does not have pointers. It has references. And the major difference between C pointers and Perl references is that C pointers allow pointer arithmetic and Perl references do not allow pointer or reference arithmetic. Hence the use of an arithmetic operator such as == on a Perl reference is not meaningful.

Tye points out that Perl has a feature that interprets the == for references in a meaningful way. Larry and company ought to remove this feature. References are not numbers. The Perl compiler ought to prohibit numeric operations on references.

In reply to Re: (ar0n) Re: eq or == with references by sierrathedog04
in thread eq or == with references by Anonymous Monk

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