LPM: Silly string question

[Steve Lane]

David Hempy wrote:
> ...but I'd rather not have the spaces around the "x".  Of course, the
> following does not work:
> 
>         print "Size: $widthx$height.\n";
> 
> So I ended up doing this:
> 
>         print "Size: $width" . "x$height.\n";
> 
> Which is fine and dandy, but requires seven extra keystrokes (including
> shifts).  My goal in my professional life is to reduce the total number of
> keystrokes my fingers must endure.  Is there some "end of identifier"
> operator or other perl magic that might fill the bill?

you're in luck, but it'll require two extra characters
(and four keystrokes):

  print "Size: ${width}x$height.\n";

i'm tempted to try to explain the general rule here
(something like "braces following a variable identifier
character mean treat what's inside the braces as either
a reference or a variable name"), but i'm not exactly
sure if that's exactly correct.  anyway, it works.
--
Steve Lane <sml at zfx.com>