Re: Why can't an array element be used as the index var in foreach?

[Mark Rogaski <wendigo@pobox.com>]

An entity claiming to be Walt Mankowski (waltman@pobox.com) wrote:
: 
: In nearly every other case I can think of in Perl, array elements work
: just like scalars.  You can, for instance, take references to them and
: use local on them.  In fact, a reference to an array element says that
: it's a scalar reference.
: 
: So what's so special about foreach loops that array elements aren't
: permitted?  And if they are explicitly forbidden, where is that
: documented?
: 

Walt,

I think the limitation has to do with foreach loop index being an alias,
as opposed to a hard reference.  Being an alias, such a syntax would imply
something like:

 *c[0] = 0;

Setting up such a glob would blow up when you tried to see what was in
$c[0], because it wouldn't know whether it was a scalar named ${c[0]} or 
an array element named @{c[0]}.  

Mark

-- 
[]                    |
[] Mark Rogaski       |  Censorship is the tool of those who have the
[] wendigo@pobox.com  |  need to hide actualities from themselves and others.
[] mrogaski@cpan.org  |                     -- Charles Bukowski
[]                    |

Attachment: pgpLO4BneCfFr.pgp
Description: PGP signature