On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 04:49:39PM +0100, Jasper McCrea wrote: > > Another possibility may be to take the > > first digit of $^T... an approach that may be valid for all places (if the > > system clock is correct), but not for all times. In particular, it should fail > > beginning April 17, 2033. > > $n=1
Drat! I missed that one! :-) Actually, I can't think of a way that using $^T to get '1' could be short anyway. Except maybe '$^T%10', and then only test it every 10 seconds. Actually, this is kind of an interesting question... what are the various ways that people have used to get a value of 1 into a variable? These aren't all very good, but here's what I can think of: - $n=1 is short, but may require parenthesizing - ++$n is also short, and probably doesn't require parenthesizing - use the return value of something else that needs to be done anyway, e.g. $n=/.../ - $n=@+ or $n=@- after a successful match with no capturing parentheses - $n=// where $_ is empty and no previously successful regexes, a la BoB's factorial solution - $n=!$| where $| is an example of some false value - $n=!!$$ where $$ is an example of some true value - use -w, thus setting $^W to 1, but winning a golf with a program that produces no warnings may well be impossible - $. when using -n0 or -p0 That exhausts my feeble brain. Any other tricks people have thought of? -- Mike -- Michael W. Thelen eval unpack u,'M*"1C/2<P,BDN-"`U+C`A(RLG*3U^>2\A+48O82UZ+SME=F%L*"1C+B(G=2HGM+" <Z,D<U4SU<(B%!.T9=5#HF-5(H)2%%/$907$`Z)B5#.E8U4BM@2&`G+EPD$+R(I.P``'
