Re: exists $foo[7] and delete $foo[7]

[Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>]

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000 11:03:14 EST, Mark-Jason Dominus wrote:
>> I've generally found Sarathy's tastes to be impeccable, 
>
>Me too, but he hasn't explained this one, and it still puzzles me.
>
>People already have trouble learning the difference between 0 and ""
>and undef.  Then they have to learn about a fourth thing for hashes
>when they find out about `exists'.  Now there is a fifth thing,
>`uninitialized', which is different from `undefined', and it seems to
>be different from `exists' for hashes.  Or maybe it isn't.  I can't tell.

Actually, it is the "same thing" as exists() for hashes, if you'll
agree that what exists() returned for pseudo-hashes was the "same thing"
as what it returned for hashes.

>So I fear that people will be even more confused than they are
>already, and no explanation or rationale has been advanced, except
>that Sarathy said that he `had to hack it in' to `fix some pesky
>artificial limitation in pseudo-hashes', whatever that is. 
>
>That's why I asked for an explanation, but that was only a little
>while ago, and it hasn't come yet.  I'd sure like to know what it is
>though.

Let me know if you want the remove the support for defined() and
exists() on arrays after reading my explanation.  I'm taking a head
count on opinions.


Sarathy
gsar@ActiveState.com

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Follow-Ups from:

"Mark Mielke" <markm@nortelnetworks.com>
Joshua N Pritikin <joshua.pritikin@db.com>
Larry Wall <larry@wall.org>
Larry Wall <larry@wall.org>
Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ing-simmons.net>

References to:

Mark-Jason Dominus <mjd@plover.com>

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