[Melbourne-pm] The || operator

[Damian Conway]

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