Not a bug, but did perl really mean that?

[p5pRT]

Migrated from rt.perl.org#842 (status was 'resolved')

Searchable as RT842$

[p5pRT]

From jmh@mail.msen.com

Truth in perl can be a problem when dealing with bitwise operators. A scalar is true if it is not '' or "0" or undef.

If we want to work with pipes\, we play with select() a lot.

pipe(A\,B); pipe(C\,D);

# Setup pipes\, fork\, etc.

vec($ready_a\, fileno(A)\, 1) = 1; vec($ready_c\, fileno(C)\, 1) = 1;

#Get ready for select vec($rin\, fileno(A)\, 1) = 1; vec($rin\, fileno(C)\, 1) = 1;

select($rout=$rin\, undef\, undef\, 10);

In C\, if we want to see if a particular selector is set\, we can say​:

if ($rout & $ready_a) { # do something useful }

We can't do this in perl because the return of ($rout & $ready_a) is "\0" when nothing is set.

This can be gotten around by saying​: if (($rout & $ready_a) eq $ready_a) { # do something useful }

Unfortunately\, I don't know if this is good for 100% of the cases since the items set by the vec() may create strings of differing length (?). E.g. the return may be "\0\0".

Trying to evaluate things in a numeric context using == doesn't seem to do the right thing.

What would be most useful is\, when dealing with vectors\, to define TRUE to not include the string of all "\0" characters.

I realize that using the bitcounting operator is a useful workaround\, but it is also inelegant.

-- Jeffrey Haas -+- jmh@​msen.com -+- http​://www.msen.com/~jmh /\/\sen\, Inc. "Michigan's Best Run Internet Service Provider."

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Jeff\,

You pointed out that a string consisting of \0 bytes isn't false\, and so it's hard to test for in Perl. Solutions are​:   if ($mask =~ /^\0*$/) and   use IO​::Select;

I've marked the bugreport as closed.

Cheers;

Nat

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Jeff\,

You pointed out that a string consisting of \0 bytes isn't false\, and so it's hard to test for in Perl. Solutions are​: if ($mask =~ /^\0*$/)

I don't think that that does what you wish it did.

  open(NEWFH\, ">/dev/null") || die $!;   $mask = '';   vec($mask\, fileno(NEWFH)\, 1) = 1;   vec($mask\, fileno(STDOUT)\, 1) = 1;   if ($mask =~ /^\0*$/) {   print "No bits here!\n";   } else {   print "Got those bits!\n";   }

Prints "No bits here." See why? :-)

--tom

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Tom Christiansen writes​:

chr( (1 \<\< 1) | (1 \<\< 3) ) eq "\n"

and "\n" always matches /^\0*$/

Zap!

Oh bollocks. Change the regexp​:   /\A\0*\Z/

Thanks for pointing that out\, Tom.

Nat

[p5pRT]

From @tamias

On Mon\, Mar 20\, 2000 at 09​:20​:23PM -0700\, Nathan Torkington wrote​:

Tom Christiansen writes​:

chr( (1 \<\< 1) | (1 \<\< 3) ) eq "\n"

and "\n" always matches /^\0*$/

Zap!

Oh bollocks. Change the regexp​: /\A\0*\Z/

Thanks for pointing that out\, Tom.

I think that should be \z. \Z can also match before a newline.

Ronald

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Ronald J Kimball writes​:

Oh bollocks. Change the regexp​: /\A\0*\Z/

I think that should be \z. \Z can also match before a newline.

That's it\, I'm taking up Python.

Nat

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

I think that should be \z. \Z can also match before a newline.

That's right. That's why I\, and even moreso Greg\, went it and fixed a million Perl libraries that were doing /^blah$/ and meaning /\Ablah\z/. The \Z is seductive for parallism. Just don't write /\ablah\z/. Ding.

--tom

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

On Mar 20\, Nathan Torkington said​:

Ronald J Kimball writes​:

Oh bollocks. Change the regexp​: /\A\0*\Z/

I think that should be \z. \Z can also match before a newline.

That's it\, I'm taking up Python.

Yeah\, good idea. Quadruple backslash to get a single backslash in a regex. Unless you use raw string quoting. Nevermind.

-- MIDN 4/C PINYAN\, NROTCURPI\, US Naval Reserve japhy@​pobox.com http​://www.pobox.com/~japhy/ http​://pinyaj.stu.rpi.edu/ PerlMonth - An Online Perl Magazine http​://www.perlmonth.com/ The Perl Archive - Articles\, Forums\, etc. http​://www.perlarchive.com/

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Tom Christiansen wrote​:

The \Z is seductive for parallism.

Only when using \A. There is no need for \A in /\Ablah\z/ since it is only meaningful with /m.

  /^blah\z/

I find the lack of symmetry here makes the intent clearer.

-- Rick Delaney rick.delaney@​home.com

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Tom Christiansen wrote​:

The \Z is seductive for parallism.

Only when using \A. There is no need for \A in /\Ablah\z/ since it is only meaningful with /m.

/^blah\z/

I find the lack of symmetry here makes the intent clearer.

That's not correct. $* may be set.

--tom

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Tom Christiansen wrote​:

That's not correct. $* may be set.

print "The meaning of deprecated in perl is "\,   (qw/crazy sensible/)[1]\,   ".\n";

Set $[ appropriately.

-- Rick Delaney rick.delaney@​home.com

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Tom Christiansen wrote​:

That's not correct. $* may be set.

print "The meaning of deprecated in perl is "\, (qw/crazy sensible/)[1]\, ".\n";

Set $[ appropriately.

No\, that's not the same. $[ is lexical. $* is global. You can't do anything about what someone else did in code you're not looking at.

--tom

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Tom Christiansen wrote​:

Set $[ appropriately.

No\, that's not the same. $[ is lexical. $* is global.   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This\, I didn't know\, or if I ever did I promptly forgot since I never use $[.

You can't do anything about what someone else did in code you're not looking at.

You are correct. Does it not make more sense to remove such action-at-a-distance behaviour rather than code around it?

-- Rick Delaney rick.delaney@​home.com

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

You can't do anything about what someone else did in code you're not looking at.

You are correct. Does it not make more sense to remove such action-at-a-distance behaviour rather than code around it?

One does what one can\, as one can. Right now\, one can code defensively. Spooky action at a distance is often disconcerting. I don't know whether making $* lexical like $] is something we could do yet.

--tom

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Tom Christiansen wrote​:

One does what one can\, as one can. Right now\, one can code

And that is appreciated.

defensively. Spooky action at a distance is often disconcerting. I don't know whether making $* lexical like $] is something we could do yet.

I see no reason to ever go there. IMHO\, it is time for $* to retire gracefully. He's been deprecated long enough and the younger players /s and /m seem to be competing quite nicely.

-- Rick Delaney rick.delaney@​home.com

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Is this right?

% P -MO=Showlex\,retval -e 'sub retval { my $self = shift; my $n = sub { my $arg = shift; return $self->{$arg} } } ' Pad of lexical names for &retval has 5 entries 0​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 1​: PVNV (0x8193810) "$self" 2​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 3​: PVNV (0x81938a0) "$n" 4​: PVNV (0x81938ac) "&" Pad of lexical values for &retval has 5 entries 0​: AV (0x81944f4) FILL -1 1​: NULL (0x80f522c) 2​: NULL (0x8193804) 3​: NULL (0x8193894) 4​: CV (0x81938b8) 0

What's all that well\, stuff? And what's the thing whose name is "&" all about? You run with Xref and it doesn't show up.

% P -MO=Xref -e 'sub retval { my $self = shift; my $n = sub { my $arg = shift; return $self->{$arg} } } ' File -e   Subroutine (definitions)   Package UNIVERSAL   &VERSION s0   &can s0   &isa s0   Package attributes   &bootstrap s0   Package main   &retval s1   Subroutine retval   Package (lexical)   $n i1   $self i1   Package main   @​_ 1

Here are more.

% perl -MO=Showlex /tmp/testit Pad of lexical names for comppadlist has 0 entries Pad of lexical values for comppadlist has 1 entries 0​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef /tmp/testit syntax OK

% perl -MO=Showlex\,start /tmp/testit Pad of lexical names for &start has 27 entries 0​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 1​: PVNV (0x8193774) "$self" 2​: PVNV (0x81937f8) "$tag" 3​: PVNV (0x8193810) "$attr" 4​: PVNV (0x8193828) "$attrseq" 5​: PVNV (0x8193840) "$orig" 6​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 7​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 8​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 9​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 10​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 11​: PVNV (0x8194458) "$tmp" 12​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 13​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 14​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 15​: PVNV (0x81944dc) "$encoded" 16​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 17​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 18​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 19​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 20​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 21​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 22​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 23​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 24​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 25​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef 26​: SPECIAL #1 &PL_sv_undef Pad of lexical values for &start has 27 entries 0​: AV (0x81945e4) FILL -1 1​: NULL (0x80f56a8) 2​: NULL (0x8193768) 3​: NULL (0x8193804) 4​: NULL (0x819381c) 5​: NULL (0x8193834) 6​: NULL (0x819384c) 7​: NULL (0x8194404) 8​: NULL (0x8194428) 9​: NULL (0x8194440) 10​: NULL (0x8194464) 11​: NULL (0x819444c) 12​: NULL (0x8194488) 13​: NULL (0x81944b8) 14​: NULL (0x81944c4) 15​: NULL (0x81944d0) 16​: NULL (0x81944e8) 17​: NULL (0x819450c) 18​: NULL (0x819453c) 19​: NULL (0x8194548) 20​: NULL (0x8194560) 21​: NULL (0x8194518) 22​: NULL (0x819456c) 23​: NULL (0x8194578) 24​: NULL (0x8194584) 25​: NULL (0x819 [truncate --tchrist]

That was from this guy that you saw before​:

% cat /tmp/testit sub start {   my($self\, $tag\, $attr\, $attrseq\, $orig) = @​_;   if ($tag eq 'a' && exists $attr->{href}) {   if ($attr->{href} =~ s/\Q$from/$to/g) {   # must reconstruct the start tag based on $tag and $attr.   # wish we instead were told the extent of the 'href' value   # in $orig.   my $tmp = "\<$tag";   for (@​$attrseq) {   my $encoded = encode_entities($attr->{$_});   $tmp .= qq( $_="$encoded ");   }   $tmp .= ">";   $self->output($tmp);   return;   }   }   $self->output($orig); }

--tom

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

However\, it blows up completely in the B​:CC case.

...

Finally\, if your program does something like 'use Fcntl'\, you get 142 lines of the following form​:

....

Note that those two\, at least\, are not platform specific.

--tom

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

This seems to better match expected usage and desirable properties. Can anybody think of any good reason why the debugger should not be fixed to work this way? (Actually\, I've already got the patch\, but wanted to run the idea by the world first.)

Well\, I've heard nothing\, so here's the patch that implements this.

Inline Patch

```diff --- perl5db.pl-presig Tue Mar 14 18:42:13 2000 +++ perl5db.pl Wed Mar 15 06:23:49 2000 @@ -346,16 +346,24 @@ return 1; } -if (-f $rcfile) { - safe_do("./$rcfile"); -} -elsif (defined $ENV{HOME} && -f "$ENV{HOME}/$rcfile") { +{ + my @sb; # stat buff to check duplicate loading + if (defined $ENV{HOME} && -f "$ENV{HOME}/$rcfile") { + @sb = stat(_); safe_do("$ENV{HOME}/$rcfile"); -} -elsif (defined $ENV{LOGDIR} && -f "$ENV{LOGDIR}/$rcfile") { + } + elsif (defined $ENV{LOGDIR} && -f "$ENV{LOGDIR}/$rcfile") { + @sb = stat(_); safe_do("$ENV{LOGDIR}/$rcfile"); -} + } + if (-f $rcfile) { + if (@sb && $sb[0] != (stat _)[0] && $sb[1] != (stat _)[1]) { + safe_do("./$rcfile"); + } + } + +} if (defined $ENV{PERLDB_OPTS}) { parse_options($ENV{PERLDB_OPTS}); } ```

[suraj-rixing]

How long has it been, dear god.

[iabyn]

On Fri, Mar 08, 2024 at 05:07:30PM -0800, dao.rixing wrote:

How long has it been, dear god.

How long has what been? What exactly are you trying to contribute to, or a complain about, in relation to this long-closed ticket?

-- All wight. I will give you one more chance. This time, I want to hear no Wubens. No Weginalds. No Wudolf the wed-nosed weindeers. -- Life of Brian