SPUG: Re: 0 == undef

[Aaron W. West]

Good point, I'd think...

It's rather the opposite of null propogation in SQL, where a comparison with
null always fails.

[MSSQL]
select
case when 0=null then '0=null' else '0<>null' end,
case when 1=null then '1=null' else '1<>null' end,
case when null=null then 'null=null' else 'null<>null' end
------- ------- ---------- 
0<>null 1<>null null<>null

(1 row(s) affected)

Not that undef and null mean exactly the same thing...

So you have to use defined tests if undef's are expected...

cygwin bash & windows cmd.exe-compatible command-line... (can't use
double-quotes within double quotes in cmd.exe, in my experience)

perl -e "print map {qq($_\t=\t[) . (eval $_) . qq(]\n) } qw(0==undef
undef==undef undef==qq() undef==1)"

0==undef        =       [1]
undef==undef    =       [1]
undef==qq()     =       [1]
undef==1        =       []


----------

Quoting in CMD.EXE is very very weird.

This command runs, but prints only a, nothing else:

perl -e "print ""a""";print 1;""
a

Note the necessity of a triple-quote to end the string. Without that I get
Can't find string terminator...

Also, there's no such thing as line-continuation (backslash in bash)

Oh well, cmd.exe sucks, we all know it...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Darley" <pdarley at kinesis-cem.com>
To: "SPUG" <spug-list at mail.pm.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 11:26 AM
Subject: SPUG: 0 == undef


Folks,
I'm wondering if there's any way to get 0 to not equal undef.  When I do:

my ($Test1, $Test2) = 0, undef;
if ($Test1 == $Test2) {print "Crap!\n"}
else {print "OK\n"}

I find out that 0==undef.

I'm also wondering what the thinking here is?
Thanks,
Peter Darley


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