DavidSzczesniak
1/3/2018 - 12:11 PM

Force Scalar Context

Sometimes, you may need to force scalar context where Perl is expecting a list. The fake function 'scalar' is used for this.

force_scalar.pl
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@rocks = qw( talc quartz jade obsidian);
print "How many rocks do you have?\n"; 
print "I have ", @rocks, " rocks!\n"; # WRONG, prints names of the rocks
print "I have ", scalar @rocks, " rocks!\n"; # correct, gives number of rocks