From jarich at perltraining.com.au Sun Oct 2 16:16:58 2005 From: jarich at perltraining.com.au (Jacinta Richardson) Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2005 09:16:58 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Further discounts on Perl Best Practices and Understanding RegExps courses Message-ID: <43406A6A.2080909@perltraining.com.au> G'day everyone, If anyone is still in negotiations with their managers about coming on Damian's "Perl Best Practices" or "Understanding Regular Expressions" courses then you've unfortunately missed our Spring Special, providing a 40% discount off the full course price. However, I'm willing to wind my clock backwards if you can get your booking (and payment) in before 5pm today (Monday 3rd October). If you can't book today, but still hope to book soon, try to book before 21st October. Bookings received (even if not paid for) by 21st of October will still recieve a 30% discount thus providing the courses at: Perl Best Practices 14th - 15th November $1540 Understanding RegExps 22nd November $770 These are great courses. In the two-day course "Perl Best Practices", Damian shows practical applications of many of his suggestions in his latest book. Get first hand experience of how using these tips and tricks can make you a better Perl coder. You also get a copy of the book. Do you use regular expressions regularly but know that there's more you could do with them? Are you baffled when you think about how to search for matching braces when there may be other nested pairs inside? Would you like to know more about code embedding, user-defined assertions, regex recursion, and backtracking control? If so, the "Understanding Regular Expressions" course is for you. Both courses are applicable to all levels of Perl skill, so feel free to pass this mail onto your colleagues and co-workers who you feel may benefit from it. Although we cannot offer a Perl Mongers discount for these courses, if you can encourage two or more people to mention you as their referrer when booking between now and 21st October, we will give you a free Perl book (of your choice). We're happy to count your booking as one of these people. I look forward to hearing from you. All the best, Jacinta Richardson -- ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ | Jacinta Richardson | `6_ 6 ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) | Perl Training Australia | (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' | +61 3 9354 6001 | _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,' | contact at perltraining.com.au | (il),-'' (li),' ((!.-' | www.perltraining.com.au | From mathew.robertson at netratings.com.au Wed Oct 5 19:24:14 2005 From: mathew.robertson at netratings.com.au (Mathew Robertson) Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 12:24:14 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Damian Conway & C++ Message-ID: <43448ACE.2030804@netratings.com.au> Hi Folks, At Damian's last presentation, he gave a demonstration of using C++ with a declarative syntax. I am pretty sure that I have a good scenario where I would prefer to use that syntax. Can anyone point me to some example code or a web link? thanks, Mathew From michael at endbracket.net Thu Oct 6 01:56:00 2005 From: michael at endbracket.net (Michael Wardle) Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 18:56:00 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Damian Conway & C++ In-Reply-To: <43448ACE.2030804@netratings.com.au> References: <43448ACE.2030804@netratings.com.au> Message-ID: <1128588961.16168.2.camel@pepper.endbracket.net> I can remember the talk about petri nets and weird layout with minus signs (---->). Some of the material seems to be discussed in Damian's papers about Embedded Input Parsing for C++ from this site: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/ From leif.eriksen at hpa.com.au Sun Oct 9 16:59:05 2005 From: leif.eriksen at hpa.com.au (leif.eriksen@hpa.com.au) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 09:59:05 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] October's meeting Message-ID: I don't have my OSDC talk ready yet (me bad), but I do have one I roughed out for the guys here at work on closures, based on the new HOP book and some issues I had with Tk - about 20-30 minutes, based on how much detail you want me to go into. Anyone interested? Leif -----Original Message----- From: jarich at perltraining.com.au [mailto:jarich at perltraining.com.au] Sent: Thursday, 29 September 2005 10:34 AM To: melbourne-pm at pm.org Subject: [Melbourne-pm] October's meeting G'day everyone, After two great meetings in September (OSD Club and Damian presenting) it's about time we started thinking about what we wanted to cover in our October meeting? Does anyone have their OSD Conference talk in a state that they're able to present it? All the best, Jacinta -- ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ | Jacinta Richardson | `6_ 6 ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) | Perl Training Australia | (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' | +61 3 9354 6001 | _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,' | contact at perltraining.com.au | (il),-'' (li),' ((!.-' | www.perltraining.com.au | _______________________________________________ Melbourne-pm mailing list Melbourne-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pm ********************************************************************** IMPORTANT The contents of this e-mail and its attachments are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you received this e-mail in error, please notify the HPA Postmaster, postmaster at hpa.com.au, then delete the e-mail. This footnote also confirms that this e-mail message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses by Ironport. Before opening or using any attachments, check them for viruses and defects. Our liability is limited to resupplying any affected attachments. HPA collects personal information to provide and market our services. For more information about use, disclosure and access see our Privacy Policy at www.hpa.com.au ********************************************************************** From scottp at dd.com.au Sun Oct 9 17:48:04 2005 From: scottp at dd.com.au (Scott Penrose) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 10:48:04 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] October's meeting In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <98FF037F-6050-4BE2-8C70-A3E6773AE3EB@dd.com.au> On 10/10/2005, at 9:59, leif.eriksen at hpa.com.au wrote: > I don't have my OSDC talk ready yet (me bad), but I do have one I > roughed out for the guys here at work on closures, based on the new > HOP > book and some issues I had with Tk - about 20-30 minutes, based on how > much detail you want me to go into. > > Anyone interested? I am - sounds good. Scott -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: PGP.sig Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 186 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/melbourne-pm/attachments/20051010/20adae9b/PGP.bin From melbourne-pm at mjch.net Sun Oct 9 17:51:03 2005 From: melbourne-pm at mjch.net (Malcolm Herbert) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 10:51:03 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] October's meeting In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20051010005103.GU12118@sci.monash.edu.au> On Mon, Oct 10, 2005 at 09:59:05AM +1000, leif.eriksen at hpa.com.au wrote: |I don't have my OSDC talk ready yet (me bad), but I do have one I |roughed out for the guys here at work on closures, based on the new HOP |book and some issues I had with Tk - about 20-30 minutes, based on how |much detail you want me to go into. When is October's meeting again? -- Malcolm Herbert Computer Support Officer School of Geosciences Monash University ph 9905 4881 From hamish.carpenter at its.monash.edu.au Sun Oct 9 18:19:04 2005 From: hamish.carpenter at its.monash.edu.au (Hamish Carpenter) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 11:19:04 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] October's meeting In-Reply-To: <433B365F.1000607@perltraining.com.au> References: <433B365F.1000607@perltraining.com.au> Message-ID: <4349C188.9090402@its.monash.edu.au> I have just completed my paper so having a talk on wednesday would be an excelent incentive to do my slides! My talk title, after Damian Conways Presentation Akido course suggested sexing it up, is: Clearing the Fog: Visualling Relationships Between HTML::Mason Components Its abstract is: Template driven web applications involve complicated hierarchies of relationships. This paper [read: talk] will discuss the benefits of mapping these relationships and one implementation for HTML::Mason templates with visualisation using GraphViz. If people are interestedI'd like the chance. It won't be polished but we all love alpha releases, don't we? Hamish Carpenter Jacinta Richardson wrote: > G'day everyone, > > After two great meetings in September (OSD Club and Damian presenting) it's > about time we started thinking about what we wanted to cover in our October > meeting? Does anyone have their OSD Conference talk in a state that they're > able to present it? > > All the best, > > Jacinta > From sisyphus1 at optusnet.com.au Mon Oct 10 00:41:37 2005 From: sisyphus1 at optusnet.com.au (Sisyphus) Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:41:37 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] fakin' it. Message-ID: <035601c5cd6e$11518920$e201140a@desktop> Hi, Does anyone know the circumstances under which the 'FAKE' flag (SVf_FAKE) will get set ? The question was asked on the XS list a while back, but I didn't see any response - though I'm sure there are people there who know the answer. The comment in sv.h says it means that "glob or lexical is just a copy". I've not yet managed to set that flag from perl ... and I'm curious. Cheers, Rob From scottp at dd.com.au Tue Oct 11 03:24:36 2005 From: scottp at dd.com.au (Scott Penrose) Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:24:36 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] October's meeting - TOMORROW - Wednesday 12th Oct 6:30pm In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <74D07FB0-7424-4154-B485-723BE43F1A67@dd.com.au> Leif Eriksen will talk about: Closures, based on the new HOP book and some issues I had with Tk about 20-30 minutes Also there is an open forum for any one who would like to present their OSDC talk or any talk between 5 and 20 minutes. Where; myinternet Level 8, 14-20 Blackwood Street North Melbourne When; 6:30 pm Wednesday 12/Oct/2005 please join us and also come along to dinner after the meeting. Scott -- * - * http://www.osdc.com.au - Open Source Developers Conference * - * Scott Penrose VP in charge of Pancakes http://linux.dd.com.au/ scottp at dd.com.au Dismaimer: If you receive this email in error - please eat it immediately to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Please do not send me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html Microsoft is not the answer. It's the question. And the answer is no. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: PGP.sig Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 186 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/melbourne-pm/attachments/20051011/0db1acd7/PGP.bin From jarich at perltraining.com.au Tue Oct 11 16:33:43 2005 From: jarich at perltraining.com.au (Jacinta Richardson) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 09:33:43 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] October's meeting In-Reply-To: <4349C188.9090402@its.monash.edu.au> References: <433B365F.1000607@perltraining.com.au> <4349C188.9090402@its.monash.edu.au> Message-ID: <434C4BD7.6090503@perltraining.com.au> Hamish Carpenter wrote: > I have just completed my paper so having a talk on wednesday would be an > excelent incentive to do my slides! Wonderful! This will go great with Leif's talk on closures. > If people are interested I'd like the chance. It won't be polished but > we all love alpha releases, don't we? I'm sure we'd all love you to present. See you there at 6:30pm. All the best, Jacinta -- ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ | Jacinta Richardson | `6_ 6 ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) | Perl Training Australia | (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' | +61 3 9354 6001 | _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,' | contact at perltraining.com.au | (il),-'' (li),' ((!.-' | www.perltraining.com.au | From edgar.kherlopian at its.monash.edu.au Tue Oct 11 17:21:14 2005 From: edgar.kherlopian at its.monash.edu.au (Edgar Kherlopian) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 10:21:14 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Help with HTTP::DAV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <434C56FA.7010008@its.monash.edu.au> Fellow perl-mongers, Has anyone found any problems with using HTTP::DAV for complex websites that have more than one state in their authentication mechanism? The site I am trying to gain access to performs the following session management: 1. If a particular request has no cookie present, a *dummy cookie* is sent back. 2. If a *dummy cookie* exists in the client's request, the server responds by asking for authentication details. 3. If authentication details pass, the server responds with a valid cookie, replacing the *dummy cookie*. HTTP::DAV, it seems, is unable to handle this situation. When performing the following: $webdav->open( '-url' => $url ); I get "Unauthorized" back and the open method returns false. Now the problem is I *expect* this and want to store the dummy cookie returned back so that I can make my next request to bring up the basic authentication. Is it possible to do this currently with HTTP::DAV? Thanks, Edgar From hamish.carpenter at its.monash.edu.au Tue Oct 11 17:41:07 2005 From: hamish.carpenter at its.monash.edu.au (Hamish Carpenter) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 10:41:07 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Help with HTTP::DAV In-Reply-To: <434C56FA.7010008@its.monash.edu.au> References: <434C56FA.7010008@its.monash.edu.au> Message-ID: <434C5BA3.3060801@its.monash.edu.au> Ed, Sounds like you may need to manipulate the user agent by using the get_user_agent() method or create the HTTP::DAV object with a special useragent implementation. They mention "dave" on the perldoc a lot for custom authentications. http://search.cpan.org/~pcollins/HTTP-DAV-0.31/DAV.pm#get_user_agent What I would suggest trying first is to get the dummy cookie with LWP or similar and then instantiate a HTTP::DAV object, give the user agent the dummy cookie and then try authenticating with the username and password. HTH Hamish Carpenter Edgar Kherlopian wrote: > Fellow perl-mongers, > > Has anyone found any problems with using HTTP::DAV for complex websites > that have more than one state in their authentication mechanism? From scottp at dd.com.au Wed Oct 19 22:28:36 2005 From: scottp at dd.com.au (Scott Penrose) Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 15:28:36 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] OSDC 2005 Registration Message-ID: <3BD6F68F-0AB5-4269-8EC0-0EBDDEA80F52@dd.com.au> G'day folks, This is a quick note to let you know that registrations for Australia's second Open Source Developers' Conference are now open. Last year's conference was a huge hit with 60 high quality talks running in three streams over three days. If you weren't able to join us last year make sure you don't miss out this year! If you register before EARLY BIRD DATE you will receive a conference t-shirt and financial discount. You can register at http://www.osdc.com.au/registration/index.html OSDC is a grass roots-style conference designed by developers for developers, covering open source languages, tools, libraries, operating systems, licences and business models. We're booking 3 lecture rooms each day for the 3 days to hold a new set 60 different talks. Talks topics range from the safety Perl's Safe.pm, to rapid game development in Python, to using PHP for unorthodox applications, to utilizing Java's Groovy in your next application. We also have talks on conference skills, database integration, digital forensics, Gumstix and Nagios. You can find the full list of speakers and talk titles at http://osdc2005.cgpublisher.com/session_descriptions.html Because there are so many good talks, you can be certain that there will be something that interests you in every talk session. Each day will start with a keynote by our excellent keynote speakers. These include Damian Conway, Jonathan Oxer, Richard Farnsworth (from the Australian Synchrotron) and Anthony Baxter. The rest of the day will be filled with up to 5 hours of talks and plentiful food breaks. Our catering choices should result in you being extraordinarily well fed throughout the days of the conference. There will also be several BOFs (yet to be organised), lots of opportunities to socialise, a semi-formal dinner, a partners' programme and other usual conference stuff. If you have any other questions about what is happening, please don't hesitate to ask: osdc-help at osdc.com.au Scott Penrose -- * - * http://www.osdc.com.au - Open Source Developers Conference * - * Scott Penrose Welcome to the Digital Dimension http://www.dd.com.au/ scottp at dd.com.au Dismaimer: Contents of this mail and signature are bound to change randomly. Whilst every attempt has been made to control said randomness, the author wishes to remain blameless for the number of eggs that damn chicken laid. Oh and I don't want to hear about butterflies either. Please do not send me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html Microsoft is not the answer. It's the question. And the answer is no. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: PGP.sig Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 186 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/melbourne-pm/attachments/20051020/8ca00112/PGP.bin From andrew.stuart at flatraterecruitment.com.au Mon Oct 24 02:23:58 2005 From: andrew.stuart at flatraterecruitment.com.au (Andrew Stuart) Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 19:23:58 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Melbourne job - Perl, SQL Guru Programmer Message-ID: <02f801c5d87c$a9a71190$4b06a8c0@swishgroup.local> Perl, SQL Guru Programmer * 1.5MBps home broadband included * Perl, SQL, Linux * small, highly successful company This is a great job working in a small and highly successful company where there is a passion for open source technologies. This company has developed a mission critical online service and is being used by an ever growing client base. It's a great company to work at if you like being on a successful team of smart people in a fun environment. The key requirements for this role is outstanding Perl coding skills and excellent knowledge of SQL, relational database design, ER modelling etc. We're looking for people with a passion for technology - perhaps someone from the Linux hacker culture (hacker as in 'serious coder', not 'cracker'). You'll need to be very comfortable working in a Linux environment. It would be advantageous but not essential to have front end development experience - DHTML, Javascript, CSS. Ideally you will have a Computer Science degree or equivalent Your personal attributes: # Passion for technology # Enjoy working in a small company # Ability to gain win respect of your fellow team members # Diplomacy # Collaboration # Strong verbal and written English communication skills If this sounds like you then please send your resume to info at flatraterecruitment.com.au Phone enquiries to (03) 9696 1616 Please note this is a permanent role and we cannot accept interstate or international applications. From jarich at perltraining.com.au Mon Oct 24 18:45:50 2005 From: jarich at perltraining.com.au (Jacinta Richardson) Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 11:45:50 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] OSDC early bird date extended Message-ID: <435D8E4E.9010800@perltraining.com.au> G'day everyone, You'll be happy to know that the early bird date for registrations has now been extended. Register before this Sunday, 30th October and only pay $245 (a saving of $50). In addition you'll receive a great conference t-shirt. The conference is running from Monday 5th ? Wednesday 7th December 2005. You can register at: http://www.osdc.com.au/registration/index.html We look forward to seeing you there! Jacinta -- ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ | Jacinta Richardson | `6_ 6 ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) | Perl Training Australia | (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' | +61 3 9354 6001 | _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,' | contact at perltraining.com.au | (il),-'' (li),' ((!.-' | www.perltraining.com.au | From astone at paxus.com.au Tue Oct 25 08:00:32 2005 From: astone at paxus.com.au (astone@paxus.com.au) Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 01:00:32 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Andrew Stone/AU/PAXUS is out of the office. Message-ID: I will be out of the office starting 21/10/2005 and will not return until 02/11/2005. I will respond to your message when I return. From ryantanthechinaman at gmail.com Thu Oct 27 21:08:38 2005 From: ryantanthechinaman at gmail.com (Ryan Tan) Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 14:08:38 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] eval Message-ID: <8de348b80510272108r437c46f9p9dffb56556c328ed@mail.gmail.com> Hi... I'm new to perl. I have a following bit of code that runs some SOAP::Lite functions, and with the nature of the web, it could return anything from 500 not founds, to hanging etc. I read a bit about using eval so it just reports the errors, but not die. I'm trying to, in this code, say if the execution of takes more than 60 seconds, to kill it and start again. I still need to notice the death and press ^C. I am using W32... would this be easier under linux (and use fork etc). Thanks Ryan CODE: sub run { for (my $a=0; $a<10000;$a++) { $SIG{ALRM} = \&timed_out; eval { alarm(60); &main; alarm(0); } } } sub timed_out { warn "\c something fishy going on\n"; &run; } From brendon.oliver at gmail.com Thu Oct 27 21:25:03 2005 From: brendon.oliver at gmail.com (Brendon Oliver) Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 14:25:03 +1000 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] eval In-Reply-To: <8de348b80510272108r437c46f9p9dffb56556c328ed@mail.gmail.com> References: <8de348b80510272108r437c46f9p9dffb56556c328ed@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200510281425.03738.brendon.oliver@gmail.com> On Friday 28 October 2005 14:08, Ryan Tan wrote: > I'm trying to, in this code, say if the execution of takes more than > 60 seconds, to kill it and start again. > > I still need to notice the death and press ^C. > > I am using W32... would this be easier under linux (and use fork > etc). > You need "die" in your signal handler, not warn. Try it this way (untested, but based on some code I _have_ used before): > for (my $a=0; $a<10000;$a++) > { eval { local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "TIMED_OUT" }; > > alarm(60); > &main; > alarm(0); }; if ( $@ eq "TIMED_OUT" ) { # ...handle time out # "next" if you want the next step thru the loop # or "last" if you want to bail out... } else { # something wicked happened! die "$@\n"; } > } Cheers, - Brendon. -- _____________________________________ / The reward for working hard is more \ \ hard work. / ------------------------------------- \ ^__^ \ (oo)\_______ (__)\ )\/\ ||----w | || || From alfiejohn at flamebait.org Mon Oct 31 14:27:58 2005 From: alfiejohn at flamebait.org (Alfie John) Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 09:27:58 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] The || operator Message-ID: Hi (), Quick question: @a = (4,5,6) || (7,8,9); use Data::Dumper; print Dumper[@a]; I would have thought @a would have contained (4,5,6). Looking through perlop, it says that this is the wrong way to use || and what would happen is: @a = scalar( (4,5,6) ) || (7,8,9); and thus @a would contain 3. But this is wrong too. In fact, @a contains (6). Any thoughts? Alfie From david_dick at iprimus.com.au Mon Oct 31 14:34:07 2005 From: david_dick at iprimus.com.au (David Dick) Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 09:34:07 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] The || operator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43669BDF.8060005@iprimus.com.au> Alfie John wrote: > @a = (4,5,6) || (7,8,9); > use Data::Dumper; > print Dumper[@a]; > > I would have thought @a would have contained (4,5,6). Looking through > perlop, it says that this is the wrong way to use || and what would > happen is: > > @a = scalar( (4,5,6) ) || (7,8,9); > > and thus @a would contain 3. But this is wrong too. > > In fact, @a contains (6). > > Any thoughts? extreme gratitude that it's not me responsible for debugging that code? :) From thoughtstream at gmail.com Mon Oct 31 15:23:32 2005 From: thoughtstream at gmail.com (Damian Conway) Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:23:32 -0500 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] The || operator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4366A774.4010702@conway.org> Alfie John wrote: > Looking through > perlop, it says that this is the wrong way to use || and what would > happen is: > > @a = scalar( (4,5,6) ) || (7,8,9); Correct. > and thus @a would contain 3. Not correct. A series of commas in scalar context doesn't create a list, but rather remains a series of scalars, only the last of which is returned as the resulting scalar value. But, yes, it's one of those places where DWIM fails in Perl 5. If it's any comfort, it works correctly in Perl 6 (and already in Pugs): #! /usr/local/bin/pugs my @x = (4,5,7) || (1,2,3); say @x.perl(); :-) Damian From david_dick at iprimus.com.au Mon Oct 31 15:22:31 2005 From: david_dick at iprimus.com.au (David Dick) Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 10:22:31 +1100 Subject: [Melbourne-pm] The || operator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4366A737.1010206@iprimus.com.au> Alfie John wrote: > Hi (), > > Quick question: > > @a = (4,5,6) || (7,8,9); > use Data::Dumper; > print Dumper[@a]; > > I would have thought @a would have contained (4,5,6). Looking through > perlop, it says that this is the wrong way to use || and what would > happen is: > > @a = scalar( (4,5,6) ) || (7,8,9); > > and thus @a would contain 3. But this is wrong too. > > In fact, @a contains (6). > > Any thoughts? okay. guessing away here... :) the (7,8,9) array ain't ever going to be reached, cos the || will short circuit it, so disregarding the (7,8,9) altogether and looking at perldoc -f scalar Because "scalar" is unary operator, if you acci? dentally use for EXPR a parenthesized list, this behaves as a scalar comma expression, evaluating all but the last element in void context and returning the final element evaluated in scalar context. This is seldom what you want. which would give you 6? interestingly enuff, when you run the script under warnings, it warns twice of "Useless use of a constant in void context", which i s'pose refers to the '4' and '5'.