From: yitzle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On 10/10/07, Jenda Krynicky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Anyhow, the point is that Perl doesn't have those confusing weird > > "pointer" > > > stuff. $a and $c do not "point" to the same place, the just got the same > > > value. (Well, Perl /does/ have pointers, but... whatever.) > > > > Yeah, it does seem you are pretty confused by pointers in C. And > > probably by references in Perl too. I wonder how can you program > > without understanding pointers/references, but whatever. > > > > Jenda > > > The purpose of my message was to clarify the part of the documentation that > Kaushal asked about.
I think you failed on that. > I am aware that Perl has pointers/references, as I mentioned, but the > question is not /about/ pointers, but variables. Then why did you start about C pointers? Why the C at the all? The int variables in C work exactly the same scalars work in Perl and the C pointers work (almost) exactly the same as the references in Perl. And BTW ... you are aware of the fact that if you do int *b; *b = 5; you cause the program to crash, right? You did not start by assigning a variable to a reference to something, you assigned to the thing already referenced by a variable. And unlike Perl, C doesn't "autovivify" the pointer. It doesn't notice that the b doesn't point to anything yet and doesn't initialize the pointer. And will try to access the address 0. > The documentation seems to be contrasting variables to pointers. Rather than > introducing perl references, I thought I could use a bit of C to explain how > it is possible that by changing $b, you affect $a, and then say with normal > Perl variables (I know, the word "normal" is wrong) do not exhibit this > behavior. This might make some sense if Kaushal knew C already. And I don't think it's the case. > I was trying to avoid being overly technical and trying to explain the > concept in a way that someone unfamiliar with pointers or references would > be able to understand them. > > How did my code indicate to you that I am confused about C pointers? It > looks pretty correct to me... > And Perl references? I mention they exist, but tried avoiding talking about > them in this explanation. I use references and pointers in programming, but > in this explanation, I believe I dealt with them correctly. It was not so much the code, but the comments. Jenda ===== [EMAIL PROTECTED] === http://Jenda.Krynicky.cz ===== When it comes to wine, women and song, wizards are allowed to get drunk and croon as much as they like. -- Terry Pratchett in Sourcery -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://learn.perl.org/
