Chas. Owens wrote: > Rob Dixon wrote: >> >> I also think that you have not written >> >> use strict; >> use warnings; >> >> at the start of your program, and anything that is presented to this list >> should >> at least have those in place. > > Just because I am in a grumpy/contrary mood, I take issue with that > statement. Perl is not just a programming language; it is also a > command line tool. There is no reason to say > perl -Mstrict -wnle 'print $1 if /foo="([^"]*)"' file_of_records > when > perl -nle 'print $1 if /foo="([^"]*)"/' file_of_records > will do; however, I do agree that any script should definitely use the > strict and warnings pragmas. Of course, I haven't seen a > Perl-as-a-command-line-tool question in a long time, so I am just > being grumpy.
Contrary is fine Chas, and here is my view. I think portraying Perl as a command-line tool limits it to fewer platforms than we would like to see it ported to. In particular the quoting standards for an -e script vary widely, and I tire of seeing people publish scripts here that will work only as a Unix shell command line. I have said several times that the shortcut behaviour of the logical operators is ugly and unfamilar to non-Unix users (yes, I know C does it, but that is a deficiency) and I can think of no excuse at all for naming the function 'grep'. I have also seen far too many questions about 'how can I reduce this algorithm to a single statement?' Golf aside, there is no reason to reduce any Perl program to a minimal byte count. If I had things my way there would never be any use of Perl as a command-line tool. To use it as one is to clip its wings and invite the prejudice of the many platforms where that simply will not work. A lot of work has gone into porting historical behaviour to most conceivable hosts, in particular the fabrication of a 'fork' call where no such native concept exists. Also -w has been superseded with 'use warnings', but nothing is so far in place to represent the -n and -p qualifiers, and they must be considered a legacy. There is no reason any more to write Perl programs on the command line, and the sooner we stop trying to force it to be a utility the quicker the world will adopt it as a language. Rob -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://learn.perl.org/
