Re: Change "($one, $two)=" behavior for optimization? (was Re: RFC 175 (v1) Add C keyword to force list context (like C))

[Nathan Wiger]

> >Let me shift gears and instead ask whether anyone thinks this:
> 
> >> >   $y = ($first, $second) = grep /$pat/, @data;
> 
> >Returning "5" has any value? If you're going to do this, it seems like
> >you'd want the number that were really returned (since scalar grep
> >will give you the total number found anyways).
> 
> Of course: the LHS is a known quantity; only the RHS is a mystery.
> That's why it does this.  I'm sure this in perldata.

Well, it only does this if it's not something like 'split', then! So
it's not 100% consistent. 

My point was whether or not this is important enough to be preserved? Or
whether it could be bent a little to both add some better implicit
counting features and optimize return values.

Besides, you could always force the full count with:

   $y = ($first, $second, @junk) = grep /$pat/, @data;

And just ignore @junk.

If it were super-important that the LHS was always constant, then split
wouldn't be able to be different. My point is that this might be
something we could tweak to make other stuff better.

-Nate