perl assignment operators

• Operator Precedence and Associativity
• Terms and List Operators (Leftward)
• The Arrow Operator
• Auto-increment and Auto-decrement
• Exponentiation
• Symbolic Unary Operators
• Binding Operators
• Multiplicative Operators
• Additive Operators
• Shift Operators
• Named Unary Operators
• Relational Operators
• Equality Operators
• Class Instance Operator
• Smartmatching of Objects
• Bitwise And
• Bitwise Or and Exclusive Or
• C-style Logical And
• C-style Logical Or
• Logical Defined-Or
• Range Operators
• Conditional Operator
• Assignment Operators
• Comma Operator
• List Operators (Rightward)
• Logical Not
• Logical And
• Logical or and Exclusive Or
• C Operators Missing From Perl
• Quote and Quote-like Operators
• Regexp Quote-Like Operators
• Quote-Like Operators
• Gory details of parsing quoted constructs
• I/O Operators
• Constant Folding
• Bitwise String Operators
• Integer Arithmetic
• Floating-point Arithmetic
• Bigger Numbers

perlop - Perl operators and precedence

# DESCRIPTION

In Perl, the operator determines what operation is performed, independent of the type of the operands. For example $x + $y is always a numeric addition, and if $x or $y do not contain numbers, an attempt is made to convert them to numbers first.

This is in contrast to many other dynamic languages, where the operation is determined by the type of the first argument. It also means that Perl has two versions of some operators, one for numeric and one for string comparison. For example $x == $y compares two numbers for equality, and $x eq $y compares two strings.

There are a few exceptions though: x can be either string repetition or list repetition, depending on the type of the left operand, and & , | , ^ and ~ can be either string or numeric bit operations.

# Operator Precedence and Associativity

Operator precedence and associativity work in Perl more or less like they do in mathematics.

Operator precedence means some operators group more tightly than others. For example, in 2 + 4 * 5 , the multiplication has higher precedence, so 4 * 5 is grouped together as the right-hand operand of the addition, rather than 2 + 4 being grouped together as the left-hand operand of the multiplication. It is as if the expression were written 2 + (4 * 5) , not (2 + 4) * 5 . So the expression yields 2 + 20 == 22 , rather than 6 * 5 == 30 .

Operator associativity defines what happens if a sequence of the same operators is used one after another: usually that they will be grouped at the left or the right. For example, in 9 - 3 - 2 , subtraction is left associative, so 9 - 3 is grouped together as the left-hand operand of the second subtraction, rather than 3 - 2 being grouped together as the right-hand operand of the first subtraction. It is as if the expression were written (9 - 3) - 2 , not 9 - (3 - 2) . So the expression yields 6 - 2 == 4 , rather than 9 - 1 == 8 .

For simple operators that evaluate all their operands and then combine the values in some way, precedence and associativity (and parentheses) imply some ordering requirements on those combining operations. For example, in 2 + 4 * 5 , the grouping implied by precedence means that the multiplication of 4 and 5 must be performed before the addition of 2 and 20, simply because the result of that multiplication is required as one of the operands of the addition. But the order of operations is not fully determined by this: in 2 * 2 + 4 * 5 both multiplications must be performed before the addition, but the grouping does not say anything about the order in which the two multiplications are performed. In fact Perl has a general rule that the operands of an operator are evaluated in left-to-right order. A few operators such as &&= have special evaluation rules that can result in an operand not being evaluated at all; in general, the top-level operator in an expression has control of operand evaluation.

Some comparison operators, as their associativity, chain with some operators of the same precedence (but never with operators of different precedence). This chaining means that each comparison is performed on the two arguments surrounding it, with each interior argument taking part in two comparisons, and the comparison results are implicitly ANDed. Thus "$x < $y <= $z" behaves exactly like "$x < $y && $y <= $z" , assuming that "$y" is as simple a scalar as it looks. The ANDing short-circuits just like "&&" does, stopping the sequence of comparisons as soon as one yields false.

In a chained comparison, each argument expression is evaluated at most once, even if it takes part in two comparisons, but the result of the evaluation is fetched for each comparison. (It is not evaluated at all if the short-circuiting means that it's not required for any comparisons.) This matters if the computation of an interior argument is expensive or non-deterministic. For example,

is not entirely like

but instead closer to

in that the subroutine is only called once. However, it's not exactly like this latter code either, because the chained comparison doesn't actually involve any temporary variable (named or otherwise): there is no assignment. This doesn't make much difference where the expression is a call to an ordinary subroutine, but matters more with an lvalue subroutine, or if the argument expression yields some unusual kind of scalar by other means. For example, if the argument expression yields a tied scalar, then the expression is evaluated to produce that scalar at most once, but the value of that scalar may be fetched up to twice, once for each comparison in which it is actually used.

In this example, the expression is evaluated only once, and the tied scalar (the result of the expression) is fetched for each comparison that uses it.

In the next example, the expression is evaluated only once, and the tied scalar is fetched once as part of the operation within the expression. The result of that operation is fetched for each comparison, which normally doesn't matter unless that expression result is also magical due to operator overloading.

Some operators are instead non-associative, meaning that it is a syntax error to use a sequence of those operators of the same precedence. For example, "$x .. $y .. $z" is an error.

Perl operators have the following associativity and precedence, listed from highest precedence to lowest. Operators borrowed from C keep the same precedence relationship with each other, even where C's precedence is slightly screwy. (This makes learning Perl easier for C folks.) With very few exceptions, these all operate on scalar values only, not array values.

In the following sections, these operators are covered in detail, in the same order in which they appear in the table above.

Many operators can be overloaded for objects. See overload .

# Terms and List Operators (Leftward)

A TERM has the highest precedence in Perl. They include variables, quote and quote-like operators, any expression in parentheses, and any function whose arguments are parenthesized. Actually, there aren't really functions in this sense, just list operators and unary operators behaving as functions because you put parentheses around the arguments. These are all documented in perlfunc .

If any list operator ( print() , etc.) or any unary operator ( chdir() , etc.) is followed by a left parenthesis as the next token, the operator and arguments within parentheses are taken to be of highest precedence, just like a normal function call.

In the absence of parentheses, the precedence of list operators such as print , sort , or chmod is either very high or very low depending on whether you are looking at the left side or the right side of the operator. For example, in

the commas on the right of the sort are evaluated before the sort , but the commas on the left are evaluated after. In other words, list operators tend to gobble up all arguments that follow, and then act like a simple TERM with regard to the preceding expression. Be careful with parentheses:

Also note that

probably doesn't do what you expect at first glance. The parentheses enclose the argument list for print which is evaluated (printing the result of $foo & 255 ). Then one is added to the return value of print (usually 1). The result is something like this:

To do what you meant properly, you must write:

See "Named Unary Operators" for more discussion of this.

Also parsed as terms are the do {} and eval {} constructs, as well as subroutine and method calls, and the anonymous constructors [] and {} .

See also "Quote and Quote-like Operators" toward the end of this section, as well as "I/O Operators" .

# The Arrow Operator

" -> " is an infix dereference operator, just as it is in C and C++. If the right side is either a [...] , {...} , or a (...) subscript, then the left side must be either a hard or symbolic reference to an array, a hash, or a subroutine respectively. (Or technically speaking, a location capable of holding a hard reference, if it's an array or hash reference being used for assignment.) See perlreftut and perlref .

Otherwise, the right side is a method name or a simple scalar variable containing either the method name or a subroutine reference, and (if it is a method name) the left side must be either an object (a blessed reference) or a class name (that is, a package name). See perlobj .

The dereferencing cases (as opposed to method-calling cases) are somewhat extended by the postderef feature. For the details of that feature, consult "Postfix Dereference Syntax" in perlref .

# Auto-increment and Auto-decrement

"++" and "--" work as in C. That is, if placed before a variable, they increment or decrement the variable by one before returning the value, and if placed after, increment or decrement after returning the value.

Note that just as in C, Perl doesn't define when the variable is incremented or decremented. You just know it will be done sometime before or after the value is returned. This also means that modifying a variable twice in the same statement will lead to undefined behavior. Avoid statements like:

Perl will not guarantee what the result of the above statements is.

The auto-increment operator has a little extra builtin magic to it. If you increment a variable that is numeric, or that has ever been used in a numeric context, you get a normal increment. If, however, the variable has been used in only string contexts since it was set, and has a value that is not the empty string and matches the pattern /^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/ , the increment is done as a string, preserving each character within its range, with carry:

undef is always treated as numeric, and in particular is changed to 0 before incrementing (so that a post-increment of an undef value will return 0 rather than undef ).

The auto-decrement operator is not magical.

# Exponentiation

Binary "**" is the exponentiation operator. It binds even more tightly than unary minus, so -2**4 is -(2**4) , not (-2)**4 . (This is implemented using C's pow(3) function, which actually works on doubles internally.)

Note that certain exponentiation expressions are ill-defined: these include 0**0 , 1**Inf , and Inf**0 . Do not expect any particular results from these special cases, the results are platform-dependent.

# Symbolic Unary Operators

Unary "!" performs logical negation, that is, "not". See also not for a lower precedence version of this.

Unary "-" performs arithmetic negation if the operand is numeric, including any string that looks like a number. If the operand is an identifier, a string consisting of a minus sign concatenated with the identifier is returned. Otherwise, if the string starts with a plus or minus, a string starting with the opposite sign is returned. One effect of these rules is that -bareword is equivalent to the string "-bareword" . If, however, the string begins with a non-alphabetic character (excluding "+" or "-" ), Perl will attempt to convert the string to a numeric, and the arithmetic negation is performed. If the string cannot be cleanly converted to a numeric, Perl will give the warning Argument "the string" isn't numeric in negation (-) at ... .

Unary "~" performs bitwise negation, that is, 1's complement. For example, 0666 & ~027 is 0640. (See also "Integer Arithmetic" and "Bitwise String Operators" .) Note that the width of the result is platform-dependent: ~0 is 32 bits wide on a 32-bit platform, but 64 bits wide on a 64-bit platform, so if you are expecting a certain bit width, remember to use the "&" operator to mask off the excess bits.

Starting in Perl 5.28, it is a fatal error to try to complement a string containing a character with an ordinal value above 255.

If the "bitwise" feature is enabled via use feature 'bitwise' or use v5.28 , then unary "~" always treats its argument as a number, and an alternate form of the operator, "~." , always treats its argument as a string. So ~0 and ~"0" will both give 2**32-1 on 32-bit platforms, whereas ~.0 and ~."0" will both yield "\xff" . Until Perl 5.28, this feature produced a warning in the "experimental::bitwise" category.

Unary "+" has no effect whatsoever, even on strings. It is useful syntactically for separating a function name from a parenthesized expression that would otherwise be interpreted as the complete list of function arguments. (See examples above under "Terms and List Operators (Leftward)" .)

Unary "\" creates references. If its operand is a single sigilled thing, it creates a reference to that object. If its operand is a parenthesised list, then it creates references to the things mentioned in the list. Otherwise it puts its operand in list context, and creates a list of references to the scalars in the list provided by the operand. See perlreftut and perlref . Do not confuse this behavior with the behavior of backslash within a string, although both forms do convey the notion of protecting the next thing from interpolation.

# Binding Operators

Binary "=~" binds a scalar expression to a pattern match. Certain operations search or modify the string $_ by default. This operator makes that kind of operation work on some other string. The right argument is a search pattern, substitution, or transliteration. The left argument is what is supposed to be searched, substituted, or transliterated instead of the default $_ . When used in scalar context, the return value generally indicates the success of the operation. The exceptions are substitution ( s/// ) and transliteration ( y/// ) with the /r (non-destructive) option, which cause the r eturn value to be the result of the substitution. Behavior in list context depends on the particular operator. See "Regexp Quote-Like Operators" for details and perlretut for examples using these operators.

If the right argument is an expression rather than a search pattern, substitution, or transliteration, it is interpreted as a search pattern at run time. Note that this means that its contents will be interpolated twice, so

is not ok, as the regex engine will end up trying to compile the pattern \ , which it will consider a syntax error.

Binary "!~" is just like "=~" except the return value is negated in the logical sense.

Binary "!~" with a non-destructive substitution ( s///r ) or transliteration ( y///r ) is a syntax error.

# Multiplicative Operators

Binary "*" multiplies two numbers.

Binary "/" divides two numbers.

Binary "%" is the modulo operator, which computes the division remainder of its first argument with respect to its second argument. Given integer operands $m and $n : If $n is positive, then $m % $n is $m minus the largest multiple of $n less than or equal to $m . If $n is negative, then $m % $n is $m minus the smallest multiple of $n that is not less than $m (that is, the result will be less than or equal to zero). If the operands $m and $n are floating point values and the absolute value of $n (that is abs($n) ) is less than (UV_MAX + 1) , only the integer portion of $m and $n will be used in the operation (Note: here UV_MAX means the maximum of the unsigned integer type). If the absolute value of the right operand ( abs($n) ) is greater than or equal to (UV_MAX + 1) , "%" computes the floating-point remainder $r in the equation ($r = $m - $i*$n) where $i is a certain integer that makes $r have the same sign as the right operand $n ( not as the left operand $m like C function fmod() ) and the absolute value less than that of $n . Note that when use integer is in scope, "%" gives you direct access to the modulo operator as implemented by your C compiler. This operator is not as well defined for negative operands, but it will execute faster.

Binary x is the repetition operator. In scalar context, or if the left operand is neither enclosed in parentheses nor a qw// list, it performs a string repetition. In that case it supplies scalar context to the left operand, and returns a string consisting of the left operand string repeated the number of times specified by the right operand. If the x is in list context, and the left operand is either enclosed in parentheses or a qw// list, it performs a list repetition. In that case it supplies list context to the left operand, and returns a list consisting of the left operand list repeated the number of times specified by the right operand. If the right operand is zero or negative (raising a warning on negative), it returns an empty string or an empty list, depending on the context.

# Additive Operators

Binary "+" returns the sum of two numbers.

Binary "-" returns the difference of two numbers.

Binary "." concatenates two strings.

# Shift Operators

Binary "<<" returns the value of its left argument shifted left by the number of bits specified by the right argument. Arguments should be integers. (See also "Integer Arithmetic" .)

Binary ">>" returns the value of its left argument shifted right by the number of bits specified by the right argument. Arguments should be integers. (See also "Integer Arithmetic" .)

If use integer (see "Integer Arithmetic" ) is in force then signed C integers are used ( arithmetic shift ), otherwise unsigned C integers are used ( logical shift ), even for negative shiftees. In arithmetic right shift the sign bit is replicated on the left, in logical shift zero bits come in from the left.

Either way, the implementation isn't going to generate results larger than the size of the integer type Perl was built with (32 bits or 64 bits).

Shifting by negative number of bits means the reverse shift: left shift becomes right shift, right shift becomes left shift. This is unlike in C, where negative shift is undefined.

Shifting by more bits than the size of the integers means most of the time zero (all bits fall off), except that under use integer right overshifting a negative shiftee results in -1. This is unlike in C, where shifting by too many bits is undefined. A common C behavior is "shift by modulo wordbits", so that for example

but that is completely accidental.

If you get tired of being subject to your platform's native integers, the use bigint pragma neatly sidesteps the issue altogether:

# Named Unary Operators

The various named unary operators are treated as functions with one argument, with optional parentheses.

If any list operator ( print() , etc.) or any unary operator ( chdir() , etc.) is followed by a left parenthesis as the next token, the operator and arguments within parentheses are taken to be of highest precedence, just like a normal function call. For example, because named unary operators are higher precedence than || :

but, because "*" is higher precedence than named operators:

Regarding precedence, the filetest operators, like -f , -M , etc. are treated like named unary operators, but they don't follow this functional parenthesis rule. That means, for example, that -f($file).".bak" is equivalent to -f "$file.bak" .

See also "Terms and List Operators (Leftward)" .

# Relational Operators

Perl operators that return true or false generally return values that can be safely used as numbers. For example, the relational operators in this section and the equality operators in the next one return 1 for true and a special version of the defined empty string, "" , which counts as a zero but is exempt from warnings about improper numeric conversions, just as "0 but true" is.

Binary "<" returns true if the left argument is numerically less than the right argument.

Binary ">" returns true if the left argument is numerically greater than the right argument.

Binary "<=" returns true if the left argument is numerically less than or equal to the right argument.

Binary ">=" returns true if the left argument is numerically greater than or equal to the right argument.

Binary "lt" returns true if the left argument is stringwise less than the right argument.

Binary "gt" returns true if the left argument is stringwise greater than the right argument.

Binary "le" returns true if the left argument is stringwise less than or equal to the right argument.

Binary "ge" returns true if the left argument is stringwise greater than or equal to the right argument.

A sequence of relational operators, such as "$x < $y <= $z" , performs chained comparisons, in the manner described above in the section "Operator Precedence and Associativity" . Beware that they do not chain with equality operators, which have lower precedence.

# Equality Operators

Binary "==" returns true if the left argument is numerically equal to the right argument.

Binary "!=" returns true if the left argument is numerically not equal to the right argument.

Binary "eq" returns true if the left argument is stringwise equal to the right argument.

Binary "ne" returns true if the left argument is stringwise not equal to the right argument.

A sequence of the above equality operators, such as "$x == $y == $z" , performs chained comparisons, in the manner described above in the section "Operator Precedence and Associativity" . Beware that they do not chain with relational operators, which have higher precedence.

Binary "<=>" returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the left argument is numerically less than, equal to, or greater than the right argument. If your platform supports NaN 's (not-a-numbers) as numeric values, using them with "<=>" returns undef. NaN is not "<" , "==" , ">" , "<=" or ">=" anything (even NaN ), so those 5 return false. NaN != NaN returns true, as does NaN != anything else . If your platform doesn't support NaN 's then NaN is just a string with numeric value 0.

(Note that the bigint , bigrat , and bignum pragmas all support "NaN" .)

Binary "cmp" returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the left argument is stringwise less than, equal to, or greater than the right argument.

Here we can see the difference between <=> and cmp,

(likewise between gt and >, lt and <, etc.)

Binary "~~" does a smartmatch between its arguments. Smart matching is described in the next section.

The two-sided ordering operators "<=>" and "cmp" , and the smartmatch operator "~~" , are non-associative with respect to each other and with respect to the equality operators of the same precedence.

"lt" , "le" , "ge" , "gt" and "cmp" use the collation (sort) order specified by the current LC_COLLATE locale if a use locale form that includes collation is in effect. See perllocale . Do not mix these with Unicode, only use them with legacy 8-bit locale encodings. The standard Unicode::Collate and Unicode::Collate::Locale modules offer much more powerful solutions to collation issues.

For case-insensitive comparisons, look at the "fc" in perlfunc case-folding function, available in Perl v5.16 or later:

# Class Instance Operator

Binary isa evaluates to true when the left argument is an object instance of the class (or a subclass derived from that class) given by the right argument. If the left argument is not defined, not a blessed object instance, nor does not derive from the class given by the right argument, the operator evaluates as false. The right argument may give the class either as a bareword or a scalar expression that yields a string class name:

This feature is available from Perl 5.31.6 onwards when enabled by use feature 'isa' . This feature is enabled automatically by a use v5.36 (or higher) declaration in the current scope.

# Smartmatch Operator

First available in Perl 5.10.1 (the 5.10.0 version behaved differently), binary ~~ does a "smartmatch" between its arguments. This is mostly used implicitly in the when construct described in perlsyn , although not all when clauses call the smartmatch operator. Unique among all of Perl's operators, the smartmatch operator can recurse. The smartmatch operator is experimental and its behavior is subject to change.

It is also unique in that all other Perl operators impose a context (usually string or numeric context) on their operands, autoconverting those operands to those imposed contexts. In contrast, smartmatch infers contexts from the actual types of its operands and uses that type information to select a suitable comparison mechanism.

The ~~ operator compares its operands "polymorphically", determining how to compare them according to their actual types (numeric, string, array, hash, etc.). Like the equality operators with which it shares the same precedence, ~~ returns 1 for true and "" for false. It is often best read aloud as "in", "inside of", or "is contained in", because the left operand is often looked for inside the right operand. That makes the order of the operands to the smartmatch operand often opposite that of the regular match operator. In other words, the "smaller" thing is usually placed in the left operand and the larger one in the right.

The behavior of a smartmatch depends on what type of things its arguments are, as determined by the following table. The first row of the table whose types apply determines the smartmatch behavior. Because what actually happens is mostly determined by the type of the second operand, the table is sorted on the right operand instead of on the left.

The smartmatch implicitly dereferences any non-blessed hash or array reference, so the HASH and ARRAY entries apply in those cases. For blessed references, the Object entries apply. Smartmatches involving hashes only consider hash keys, never hash values.

The "like" code entry is not always an exact rendition. For example, the smartmatch operator short-circuits whenever possible, but grep does not. Also, grep in scalar context returns the number of matches, but ~~ returns only true or false.

Unlike most operators, the smartmatch operator knows to treat undef specially:

Each operand is considered in a modified scalar context, the modification being that array and hash variables are passed by reference to the operator, which implicitly dereferences them. Both elements of each pair are the same:

Two arrays smartmatch if each element in the first array smartmatches (that is, is "in") the corresponding element in the second array, recursively.

Because the smartmatch operator recurses on nested arrays, this will still report that "red" is in the array.

If two arrays smartmatch each other, then they are deep copies of each others' values, as this example reports:

If you were to set $b[3] = 4 , then instead of reporting that "a and b are deep copies of each other", it now reports that "b smartmatches in a" . That's because the corresponding position in @a contains an array that (eventually) has a 4 in it.

Smartmatching one hash against another reports whether both contain the same keys, no more and no less. This could be used to see whether two records have the same field names, without caring what values those fields might have. For example:

However, this only does what you mean if $init_fields is indeed a hash reference. The condition $init_fields ~~ $REQUIRED_FIELDS also allows the strings "name" , "rank" , "serial_num" as well as any array reference that contains "name" or "rank" or "serial_num" anywhere to pass through.

The smartmatch operator is most often used as the implicit operator of a when clause. See the section on "Switch Statements" in perlsyn .

# Smartmatching of Objects

To avoid relying on an object's underlying representation, if the smartmatch's right operand is an object that doesn't overload ~~ , it raises the exception " Smartmatching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation ". That's because one has no business digging around to see whether something is "in" an object. These are all illegal on objects without a ~~ overload:

However, you can change the way an object is smartmatched by overloading the ~~ operator. This is allowed to extend the usual smartmatch semantics. For objects that do have an ~~ overload, see overload .

Using an object as the left operand is allowed, although not very useful. Smartmatching rules take precedence over overloading, so even if the object in the left operand has smartmatch overloading, this will be ignored. A left operand that is a non-overloaded object falls back on a string or numeric comparison of whatever the ref operator returns. That means that

does not invoke the overload method with X as an argument. Instead the above table is consulted as normal, and based on the type of X , overloading may or may not be invoked. For simple strings or numbers, "in" becomes equivalent to this:

For example, this reports that the handle smells IOish (but please don't really do this!):

That's because it treats $fh as a string like "IO::Handle=GLOB(0x8039e0)" , then pattern matches against that.

# Bitwise And

Binary "&" returns its operands ANDed together bit by bit. Although no warning is currently raised, the result is not well defined when this operation is performed on operands that aren't either numbers (see "Integer Arithmetic" ) nor bitstrings (see "Bitwise String Operators" ).

Note that "&" has lower priority than relational operators, so for example the parentheses are essential in a test like

If the "bitwise" feature is enabled via use feature 'bitwise' or use v5.28 , then this operator always treats its operands as numbers. Before Perl 5.28 this feature produced a warning in the "experimental::bitwise" category.

# Bitwise Or and Exclusive Or

Binary "|" returns its operands ORed together bit by bit.

Binary "^" returns its operands XORed together bit by bit.

Although no warning is currently raised, the results are not well defined when these operations are performed on operands that aren't either numbers (see "Integer Arithmetic" ) nor bitstrings (see "Bitwise String Operators" ).

Note that "|" and "^" have lower priority than relational operators, so for example the parentheses are essential in a test like

If the "bitwise" feature is enabled via use feature 'bitwise' or use v5.28 , then this operator always treats its operands as numbers. Before Perl 5.28. this feature produced a warning in the "experimental::bitwise" category.

# C-style Logical And

Binary "&&" performs a short-circuit logical AND operation. That is, if the left operand is false, the right operand is not even evaluated. Scalar or list context propagates down to the right operand if it is evaluated.

# C-style Logical Or

Binary "||" performs a short-circuit logical OR operation. That is, if the left operand is true, the right operand is not even evaluated. Scalar or list context propagates down to the right operand if it is evaluated.

# Logical Defined-Or

Although it has no direct equivalent in C, Perl's // operator is related to its C-style "or". In fact, it's exactly the same as || , except that it tests the left hand side's definedness instead of its truth. Thus, EXPR1 // EXPR2 returns the value of EXPR1 if it's defined, otherwise, the value of EXPR2 is returned. ( EXPR1 is evaluated in scalar context, EXPR2 in the context of // itself). Usually, this is the same result as defined(EXPR1) ? EXPR1 : EXPR2 (except that the ternary-operator form can be used as a lvalue, while EXPR1 // EXPR2 cannot). This is very useful for providing default values for variables. If you actually want to test if at least one of $x and $y is defined, use defined($x // $y) .

The || , // and && operators return the last value evaluated (unlike C's || and && , which return 0 or 1). Thus, a reasonably portable way to find out the home directory might be:

In particular, this means that you shouldn't use this for selecting between two aggregates for assignment:

As alternatives to && and || when used for control flow, Perl provides the and and or operators (see below). The short-circuit behavior is identical. The precedence of "and" and "or" is much lower, however, so that you can safely use them after a list operator without the need for parentheses:

With the C-style operators that would have been written like this:

It would be even more readable to write that this way:

Using "or" for assignment is unlikely to do what you want; see below.

# Range Operators

Binary ".." is the range operator, which is really two different operators depending on the context. In list context, it returns a list of values counting (up by ones) from the left value to the right value. If the left value is greater than the right value then it returns the empty list. The range operator is useful for writing foreach (1..10) loops and for doing slice operations on arrays. In the current implementation, no temporary array is created when the range operator is used as the expression in foreach loops, but older versions of Perl might burn a lot of memory when you write something like this:

The range operator also works on strings, using the magical auto-increment, see below.

In scalar context, ".." returns a boolean value. The operator is bistable, like a flip-flop, and emulates the line-range (comma) operator of sed , awk , and various editors. Each ".." operator maintains its own boolean state, even across calls to a subroutine that contains it. It is false as long as its left operand is false. Once the left operand is true, the range operator stays true until the right operand is true, AFTER which the range operator becomes false again. It doesn't become false till the next time the range operator is evaluated. It can test the right operand and become false on the same evaluation it became true (as in awk ), but it still returns true once. If you don't want it to test the right operand until the next evaluation, as in sed , just use three dots ( "..." ) instead of two. In all other regards, "..." behaves just like ".." does.

The right operand is not evaluated while the operator is in the "false" state, and the left operand is not evaluated while the operator is in the "true" state. The precedence is a little lower than || and &&. The value returned is either the empty string for false, or a sequence number (beginning with 1) for true. The sequence number is reset for each range encountered. The final sequence number in a range has the string "E0" appended to it, which doesn't affect its numeric value, but gives you something to search for if you want to exclude the endpoint. You can exclude the beginning point by waiting for the sequence number to be greater than 1.

If either operand of scalar ".." is a constant expression, that operand is considered true if it is equal ( == ) to the current input line number (the $. variable).

To be pedantic, the comparison is actually int(EXPR) == int(EXPR) , but that is only an issue if you use a floating point expression; when implicitly using $. as described in the previous paragraph, the comparison is int(EXPR) == int($.) which is only an issue when $. is set to a floating point value and you are not reading from a file. Furthermore, "span" .. "spat" or 2.18 .. 3.14 will not do what you want in scalar context because each of the operands are evaluated using their integer representation.

As a scalar operator:

Here's a simple example to illustrate the difference between the two range operators:

This program will print only the line containing "Bar". If the range operator is changed to ... , it will also print the "Baz" line.

And now some examples as a list operator:

Because each operand is evaluated in integer form, 2.18 .. 3.14 will return two elements in list context.

The range operator in list context can make use of the magical auto-increment algorithm if both operands are strings, subject to the following rules:

With one exception (below), if both strings look like numbers to Perl, the magic increment will not be applied, and the strings will be treated as numbers (more specifically, integers) instead.

For example, "-2".."2" is the same as -2..2 , and "2.18".."3.14" produces 2, 3 .

The exception to the above rule is when the left-hand string begins with 0 and is longer than one character, in this case the magic increment will be applied, even though strings like "01" would normally look like a number to Perl.

For example, "01".."04" produces "01", "02", "03", "04" , and "00".."-1" produces "00" through "99" - this may seem surprising, but see the following rules for why it works this way. To get dates with leading zeros, you can say:

If you want to force strings to be interpreted as numbers, you could say

Note: In Perl versions 5.30 and below, any string on the left-hand side beginning with "0" , including the string "0" itself, would cause the magic string increment behavior. This means that on these Perl versions, "0".."-1" would produce "0" through "99" , which was inconsistent with 0..-1 , which produces the empty list. This also means that "0".."9" now produces a list of integers instead of a list of strings.

If the initial value specified isn't part of a magical increment sequence (that is, a non-empty string matching /^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/ ), only the initial value will be returned.

For example, "ax".."az" produces "ax", "ay", "az" , but "*x".."az" produces only "*x" .

For other initial values that are strings that do follow the rules of the magical increment, the corresponding sequence will be returned.

For example, you can say

to get all normal letters of the English alphabet, or

to get a hexadecimal digit.

If the final value specified is not in the sequence that the magical increment would produce, the sequence goes until the next value would be longer than the final value specified. If the length of the final string is shorter than the first, the empty list is returned.

For example, "a".."--" is the same as "a".."zz" , "0".."xx" produces "0" through "99" , and "aaa".."--" returns the empty list.

As of Perl 5.26, the list-context range operator on strings works as expected in the scope of "use feature 'unicode_strings" . In previous versions, and outside the scope of that feature, it exhibits "The "Unicode Bug"" in perlunicode : its behavior depends on the internal encoding of the range endpoint.

Because the magical increment only works on non-empty strings matching /^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]*\z/ , the following will only return an alpha:

To get the 25 traditional lowercase Greek letters, including both sigmas, you could use this instead:

However, because there are many other lowercase Greek characters than just those, to match lowercase Greek characters in a regular expression, you could use the pattern /(?:(?=\p{Greek})\p{Lower})+/ (or the experimental feature /(?[ \p{Greek} & \p{Lower} ])+/ ).

# Conditional Operator

Ternary "?:" is the conditional operator, just as in C. It works much like an if-then-else. If the argument before the ? is true, the argument before the : is returned, otherwise the argument after the : is returned. For example:

Scalar or list context propagates downward into the 2nd or 3rd argument, whichever is selected.

The operator may be assigned to if both the 2nd and 3rd arguments are legal lvalues (meaning that you can assign to them):

Because this operator produces an assignable result, using assignments without parentheses will get you in trouble. For example, this:

Really means this:

Rather than this:

That should probably be written more simply as:

# Assignment Operators

"=" is the ordinary assignment operator.

Assignment operators work as in C. That is,

is equivalent to

although without duplicating any side effects that dereferencing the lvalue might trigger, such as from tie() . Other assignment operators work similarly. The following are recognized:

Although these are grouped by family, they all have the precedence of assignment. These combined assignment operators can only operate on scalars, whereas the ordinary assignment operator can assign to arrays, hashes, lists and even references. (See "Context" and "List value constructors" in perldata , and "Assigning to References" in perlref .)

Unlike in C, the scalar assignment operator produces a valid lvalue. Modifying an assignment is equivalent to doing the assignment and then modifying the variable that was assigned to. This is useful for modifying a copy of something, like this:

Although as of 5.14, that can be also be accomplished this way:

Similarly, a list assignment in list context produces the list of lvalues assigned to, and a list assignment in scalar context returns the number of elements produced by the expression on the right hand side of the assignment.

The three dotted bitwise assignment operators ( &.= |.= ^.= ) are new in Perl 5.22. See "Bitwise String Operators" .

# Comma Operator

Binary "," is the comma operator. In scalar context it evaluates its left argument, throws that value away, then evaluates its right argument and returns that value. This is just like C's comma operator.

In list context, it's just the list argument separator, and inserts both its arguments into the list. These arguments are also evaluated from left to right.

The => operator (sometimes pronounced "fat comma") is a synonym for the comma except that it causes a word on its left to be interpreted as a string if it begins with a letter or underscore and is composed only of letters, digits and underscores. This includes operands that might otherwise be interpreted as operators, constants, single number v-strings or function calls. If in doubt about this behavior, the left operand can be quoted explicitly.

Otherwise, the => operator behaves exactly as the comma operator or list argument separator, according to context.

For example:

is equivalent to:

It is NOT :

The => operator is helpful in documenting the correspondence between keys and values in hashes, and other paired elements in lists.

The special quoting behavior ignores precedence, and hence may apply to part of the left operand:

That example prints something like "1314363215shiftbbb" , because the => implicitly quotes the shift immediately on its left, ignoring the fact that time.shift is the entire left operand.

# List Operators (Rightward)

On the right side of a list operator, the comma has very low precedence, such that it controls all comma-separated expressions found there. The only operators with lower precedence are the logical operators "and" , "or" , and "not" , which may be used to evaluate calls to list operators without the need for parentheses:

However, some people find that code harder to read than writing it with parentheses:

in which case you might as well just use the more customary "||" operator:

See also discussion of list operators in "Terms and List Operators (Leftward)" .

# Logical Not

Unary "not" returns the logical negation of the expression to its right. It's the equivalent of "!" except for the very low precedence.

# Logical And

Binary "and" returns the logical conjunction of the two surrounding expressions. It's equivalent to && except for the very low precedence. This means that it short-circuits: the right expression is evaluated only if the left expression is true.

# Logical or and Exclusive Or

Binary "or" returns the logical disjunction of the two surrounding expressions. It's equivalent to || except for the very low precedence. This makes it useful for control flow:

This means that it short-circuits: the right expression is evaluated only if the left expression is false. Due to its precedence, you must be careful to avoid using it as replacement for the || operator. It usually works out better for flow control than in assignments:

However, when it's a list-context assignment and you're trying to use || for control flow, you probably need "or" so that the assignment takes higher precedence.

Then again, you could always use parentheses.

Binary "xor" returns the exclusive-OR of the two surrounding expressions. It cannot short-circuit (of course).

There is no low precedence operator for defined-OR.

# C Operators Missing From Perl

Here is what C has that Perl doesn't:

Address-of operator. (But see the "\" operator for taking a reference.)

Dereference-address operator. (Perl's prefix dereferencing operators are typed: $ , @ , % , and & .)

Type-casting operator.

# Quote and Quote-like Operators

While we usually think of quotes as literal values, in Perl they function as operators, providing various kinds of interpolating and pattern matching capabilities. Perl provides customary quote characters for these behaviors, but also provides a way for you to choose your quote character for any of them. In the following table, a {} represents any pair of delimiters you choose.

Non-bracketing delimiters use the same character fore and aft, but the four sorts of ASCII brackets (round, angle, square, curly) all nest, which means that

is the same as

Note, however, that this does not always work for quoting Perl code:

is a syntax error. The Text::Balanced module (standard as of v5.8, and from CPAN before then) is able to do this properly.

There can (and in some cases, must) be whitespace between the operator and the quoting characters, except when # is being used as the quoting character. q#foo# is parsed as the string foo , while q #foo# is the operator q followed by a comment. Its argument will be taken from the next line. This allows you to write:

The cases where whitespace must be used are when the quoting character is a word character (meaning it matches /\w/ ):

The following escape sequences are available in constructs that interpolate, and in transliterations whose delimiters aren't single quotes ( "'" ). In all the ones with braces, any number of blanks and/or tabs adjoining and within the braces are allowed (and ignored).

Note that any escape sequence using braces inside interpolated constructs may have optional blanks (tab or space characters) adjoining with and inside of the braces, as illustrated above by the second \x{ } example.

The result is the character specified by the hexadecimal number between the braces. See "[8]" below for details on which character.

Blanks (tab or space characters) may separate the number from either or both of the braces.

Otherwise, only hexadecimal digits are valid between the braces. If an invalid character is encountered, a warning will be issued and the invalid character and all subsequent characters (valid or invalid) within the braces will be discarded.

If there are no valid digits between the braces, the generated character is the NULL character ( \x{00} ). However, an explicit empty brace ( \x{} ) will not cause a warning (currently).

The result is the character specified by the hexadecimal number in the range 0x00 to 0xFF. See "[8]" below for details on which character.

Only hexadecimal digits are valid following \x . When \x is followed by fewer than two valid digits, any valid digits will be zero-padded. This means that \x7 will be interpreted as \x07 , and a lone "\x" will be interpreted as \x00 . Except at the end of a string, having fewer than two valid digits will result in a warning. Note that although the warning says the illegal character is ignored, it is only ignored as part of the escape and will still be used as the subsequent character in the string. For example:

The result is the Unicode character or character sequence given by name . See charnames .

\N{U+ hexadecimal number } means the Unicode character whose Unicode code point is hexadecimal number .

The character following \c is mapped to some other character as shown in the table:

In other words, it's the character whose code point has had 64 xor'd with its uppercase. \c? is DELETE on ASCII platforms because ord("?") ^ 64 is 127, and \c@ is NULL because the ord of "@" is 64, so xor'ing 64 itself produces 0.

Also, \c\ X yields chr(28) . " X " for any X , but cannot come at the end of a string, because the backslash would be parsed as escaping the end quote.

On ASCII platforms, the resulting characters from the list above are the complete set of ASCII controls. This isn't the case on EBCDIC platforms; see "OPERATOR DIFFERENCES" in perlebcdic for a full discussion of the differences between these for ASCII versus EBCDIC platforms.

Use of any other character following the "c" besides those listed above is discouraged, and as of Perl v5.20, the only characters actually allowed are the printable ASCII ones, minus the left brace "{" . What happens for any of the allowed other characters is that the value is derived by xor'ing with the seventh bit, which is 64, and a warning raised if enabled. Using the non-allowed characters generates a fatal error.

To get platform independent controls, you can use \N{...} .

The result is the character specified by the octal number between the braces. See "[8]" below for details on which character.

Otherwise, if a character that isn't an octal digit is encountered, a warning is raised, and the value is based on the octal digits before it, discarding it and all following characters up to the closing brace. It is a fatal error if there are no octal digits at all.

The result is the character specified by the three-digit octal number in the range 000 to 777 (but best to not use above 077, see next paragraph). See "[8]" below for details on which character.

Some contexts allow 2 or even 1 digit, but any usage without exactly three digits, the first being a zero, may give unintended results. (For example, in a regular expression it may be confused with a backreference; see "Octal escapes" in perlrebackslash .) Starting in Perl 5.14, you may use \o{} instead, which avoids all these problems. Otherwise, it is best to use this construct only for ordinals \077 and below, remembering to pad to the left with zeros to make three digits. For larger ordinals, either use \o{} , or convert to something else, such as to hex and use \N{U+} (which is portable between platforms with different character sets) or \x{} instead.

Several constructs above specify a character by a number. That number gives the character's position in the character set encoding (indexed from 0). This is called synonymously its ordinal, code position, or code point. Perl works on platforms that have a native encoding currently of either ASCII/Latin1 or EBCDIC, each of which allow specification of 256 characters. In general, if the number is 255 (0xFF, 0377) or below, Perl interprets this in the platform's native encoding. If the number is 256 (0x100, 0400) or above, Perl interprets it as a Unicode code point and the result is the corresponding Unicode character. For example \x{50} and \o{120} both are the number 80 in decimal, which is less than 256, so the number is interpreted in the native character set encoding. In ASCII the character in the 80th position (indexed from 0) is the letter "P" , and in EBCDIC it is the ampersand symbol "&" . \x{100} and \o{400} are both 256 in decimal, so the number is interpreted as a Unicode code point no matter what the native encoding is. The name of the character in the 256th position (indexed by 0) in Unicode is LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH MACRON .

An exception to the above rule is that \N{U+ hex number } is always interpreted as a Unicode code point, so that \N{U+0050} is "P" even on EBCDIC platforms.

NOTE : Unlike C and other languages, Perl has no \v escape sequence for the vertical tab (VT, which is 11 in both ASCII and EBCDIC), but you may use \N{VT} , \ck , \N{U+0b} , or \x0b . ( \v does have meaning in regular expression patterns in Perl, see perlre .)

The following escape sequences are available in constructs that interpolate, but not in transliterations.

See "quotemeta" in perlfunc for the exact definition of characters that are quoted by \Q .

\L , \U , \F , and \Q can stack, in which case you need one \E for each. For example:

If a use locale form that includes LC_CTYPE is in effect (see perllocale ), the case map used by \l , \L , \u , and \U is taken from the current locale. If Unicode (for example, \N{} or code points of 0x100 or beyond) is being used, the case map used by \l , \L , \u , and \U is as defined by Unicode. That means that case-mapping a single character can sometimes produce a sequence of several characters. Under use locale , \F produces the same results as \L for all locales but a UTF-8 one, where it instead uses the Unicode definition.

All systems use the virtual "\n" to represent a line terminator, called a "newline". There is no such thing as an unvarying, physical newline character. It is only an illusion that the operating system, device drivers, C libraries, and Perl all conspire to preserve. Not all systems read "\r" as ASCII CR and "\n" as ASCII LF. For example, on the ancient Macs (pre-MacOS X) of yesteryear, these used to be reversed, and on systems without a line terminator, printing "\n" might emit no actual data. In general, use "\n" when you mean a "newline" for your system, but use the literal ASCII when you need an exact character. For example, most networking protocols expect and prefer a CR+LF ( "\015\012" or "\cM\cJ" ) for line terminators, and although they often accept just "\012" , they seldom tolerate just "\015" . If you get in the habit of using "\n" for networking, you may be burned some day.

For constructs that do interpolate, variables beginning with " $ " or " @ " are interpolated. Subscripted variables such as $a[3] or $href->{key}[0] are also interpolated, as are array and hash slices. But method calls such as $obj->meth are not.

Interpolating an array or slice interpolates the elements in order, separated by the value of $" , so is equivalent to interpolating join $", @array . "Punctuation" arrays such as @* are usually interpolated only if the name is enclosed in braces @{*} , but the arrays @_ , @+ , and @- are interpolated even without braces.

For double-quoted strings, the quoting from \Q is applied after interpolation and escapes are processed.

For the pattern of regex operators ( qr// , m// and s/// ), the quoting from \Q is applied after interpolation is processed, but before escapes are processed. This allows the pattern to match literally (except for $ and @ ). For example, the following matches:

Because $ or @ trigger interpolation, you'll need to use something like /\Quser\E\@\Qhost/ to match them literally.

Patterns are subject to an additional level of interpretation as a regular expression. This is done as a second pass, after variables are interpolated, so that regular expressions may be incorporated into the pattern from the variables. If this is not what you want, use \Q to interpolate a variable literally.

Apart from the behavior described above, Perl does not expand multiple levels of interpolation. In particular, contrary to the expectations of shell programmers, back-quotes do NOT interpolate within double quotes, nor do single quotes impede evaluation of variables when used within double quotes.

# Regexp Quote-Like Operators

Here are the quote-like operators that apply to pattern matching and related activities.

This operator quotes (and possibly compiles) its STRING as a regular expression. STRING is interpolated the same way as PATTERN in m/ PATTERN / . If "'" is used as the delimiter, no variable interpolation is done. Returns a Perl value which may be used instead of the corresponding / STRING /msixpodualn expression. The returned value is a normalized version of the original pattern. It magically differs from a string containing the same characters: ref(qr/x/) returns "Regexp"; however, dereferencing it is not well defined (you currently get the normalized version of the original pattern, but this may change).

For example,

The result may be used as a subpattern in a match:

Since Perl may compile the pattern at the moment of execution of the qr() operator, using qr() may have speed advantages in some situations, notably if the result of qr() is used standalone:

Precompilation of the pattern into an internal representation at the moment of qr() avoids the need to recompile the pattern every time a match /$pat/ is attempted. (Perl has many other internal optimizations, but none would be triggered in the above example if we did not use qr() operator.)

Options (specified by the following modifiers) are:

If a precompiled pattern is embedded in a larger pattern then the effect of "msixpluadn" will be propagated appropriately. The effect that the /o modifier has is not propagated, being restricted to those patterns explicitly using it.

The /a , /d , /l , and /u modifiers (added in Perl 5.14) control the character set rules, but /a is the only one you are likely to want to specify explicitly; the other three are selected automatically by various pragmas.

See perlre for additional information on valid syntax for STRING , and for a detailed look at the semantics of regular expressions. In particular, all modifiers except the largely obsolete /o are further explained in "Modifiers" in perlre . /o is described in the next section.

Searches a string for a pattern match, and in scalar context returns true if it succeeds, false if it fails. If no string is specified via the =~ or !~ operator, the $_ string is searched. (The string specified with =~ need not be an lvalue--it may be the result of an expression evaluation, but remember the =~ binds rather tightly.) See also perlre .

Options are as described in qr// above; in addition, the following match process modifiers are available:

If "/" is the delimiter then the initial m is optional. With the m you can use any pair of non-whitespace (ASCII) characters as delimiters. This is particularly useful for matching path names that contain "/" , to avoid LTS (leaning toothpick syndrome). If "?" is the delimiter, then a match-only-once rule applies, described in m? PATTERN ? below. If "'" (single quote) is the delimiter, no variable interpolation is performed on the PATTERN . When using a delimiter character valid in an identifier, whitespace is required after the m .

PATTERN may contain variables, which will be interpolated every time the pattern search is evaluated, except for when the delimiter is a single quote. (Note that $( , $) , and $| are not interpolated because they look like end-of-string tests.) Perl will not recompile the pattern unless an interpolated variable that it contains changes. You can force Perl to skip the test and never recompile by adding a /o (which stands for "once") after the trailing delimiter. Once upon a time, Perl would recompile regular expressions unnecessarily, and this modifier was useful to tell it not to do so, in the interests of speed. But now, the only reasons to use /o are one of:

The variables are thousands of characters long and you know that they don't change, and you need to wring out the last little bit of speed by having Perl skip testing for that. (There is a maintenance penalty for doing this, as mentioning /o constitutes a promise that you won't change the variables in the pattern. If you do change them, Perl won't even notice.)

you want the pattern to use the initial values of the variables regardless of whether they change or not. (But there are saner ways of accomplishing this than using /o .)

If the pattern contains embedded code, such as

then perl will recompile each time, even though the pattern string hasn't changed, to ensure that the current value of $x is seen each time. Use /o if you want to avoid this.

The bottom line is that using /o is almost never a good idea.

If the PATTERN evaluates to the empty string, the last successfully matched regular expression is used instead. In this case, only the g and c flags on the empty pattern are honored; the other flags are taken from the original pattern. If no match has previously succeeded, this will (silently) act instead as a genuine empty pattern (which will always match). Using a user supplied string as a pattern has the risk that if the string is empty that it triggers the "last successful match" behavior, which can be very confusing. In such cases you are recommended to replace m/$pattern/ with m/(?:$pattern)/ to avoid this behavior.

The last successful pattern may be accessed as a variable via ${^LAST_SUCCESSFUL_PATTERN} . Matching against it, or the empty pattern should have the same effect, with the exception that when there is no last successful pattern the empty pattern will silently match, whereas using the ${^LAST_SUCCESSFUL_PATTERN} variable will produce undefined warnings (if warnings are enabled). You can check defined(${^LAST_SUCCESSFUL_PATTERN}) to test if there is a "last successful match" in the current scope.

Note that it's possible to confuse Perl into thinking // (the empty regex) is really // (the defined-or operator). Perl is usually pretty good about this, but some pathological cases might trigger this, such as $x/// (is that ($x) / (//) or $x // / ?) and print $fh // ( print $fh(// or print($fh // ?). In all of these examples, Perl will assume you meant defined-or. If you meant the empty regex, just use parentheses or spaces to disambiguate, or even prefix the empty regex with an m (so // becomes m// ).

If the /g option is not used, m// in list context returns a list consisting of the subexpressions matched by the parentheses in the pattern, that is, ( $1 , $2 , $3 ...) (Note that here $1 etc. are also set). When there are no parentheses in the pattern, the return value is the list (1) for success. With or without parentheses, an empty list is returned upon failure.

This last example splits $foo into the first two words and the remainder of the line, and assigns those three fields to $F1 , $F2 , and $Etc . The conditional is true if any variables were assigned; that is, if the pattern matched.

The /g modifier specifies global pattern matching--that is, matching as many times as possible within the string. How it behaves depends on the context. In list context, it returns a list of the substrings matched by any capturing parentheses in the regular expression. If there are no parentheses, it returns a list of all the matched strings, as if there were parentheses around the whole pattern.

In scalar context, each execution of m//g finds the next match, returning true if it matches, and false if there is no further match. The position after the last match can be read or set using the pos() function; see "pos" in perlfunc . A failed match normally resets the search position to the beginning of the string, but you can avoid that by adding the /c modifier (for example, m//gc ). Modifying the target string also resets the search position.

You can intermix m//g matches with m/\G.../g , where \G is a zero-width assertion that matches the exact position where the previous m//g , if any, left off. Without the /g modifier, the \G assertion still anchors at pos() as it was at the start of the operation (see "pos" in perlfunc ), but the match is of course only attempted once. Using \G without /g on a target string that has not previously had a /g match applied to it is the same as using the \A assertion to match the beginning of the string. Note also that, currently, \G is only properly supported when anchored at the very beginning of the pattern.

Here's another way to check for sentences in a paragraph:

Here's how to use m//gc with \G :

The last example should print:

Notice that the final match matched q instead of p , which a match without the \G anchor would have done. Also note that the final match did not update pos . pos is only updated on a /g match. If the final match did indeed match p , it's a good bet that you're running an ancient (pre-5.6.0) version of Perl.

A useful idiom for lex -like scanners is /\G.../gc . You can combine several regexps like this to process a string part-by-part, doing different actions depending on which regexp matched. Each regexp tries to match where the previous one leaves off.

Here is the output (split into several lines):

This is just like the m/ PATTERN / search, except that it matches only once between calls to the reset() operator. This is a useful optimization when you want to see only the first occurrence of something in each file of a set of files, for instance. Only m?? patterns local to the current package are reset.

Another example switched the first "latin1" encoding it finds to "utf8" in a pod file:

The match-once behavior is controlled by the match delimiter being ? ; with any other delimiter this is the normal m// operator.

In the past, the leading m in m? PATTERN ? was optional, but omitting it would produce a deprecation warning. As of v5.22.0, omitting it produces a syntax error. If you encounter this construct in older code, you can just add m .

Searches a string for a pattern, and if found, replaces that pattern with the replacement text and returns the number of substitutions made. Otherwise it returns false (a value that is both an empty string ( "" ) and numeric zero ( 0 ) as described in "Relational Operators" ).

If the /r (non-destructive) option is used then it runs the substitution on a copy of the string and instead of returning the number of substitutions, it returns the copy whether or not a substitution occurred. The original string is never changed when /r is used. The copy will always be a plain string, even if the input is an object or a tied variable.

If no string is specified via the =~ or !~ operator, the $_ variable is searched and modified. Unless the /r option is used, the string specified must be a scalar variable, an array element, a hash element, or an assignment to one of those; that is, some sort of scalar lvalue.

If the delimiter chosen is a single quote, no variable interpolation is done on either the PATTERN or the REPLACEMENT . Otherwise, if the PATTERN contains a $ that looks like a variable rather than an end-of-string test, the variable will be interpolated into the pattern at run-time. If you want the pattern compiled only once the first time the variable is interpolated, use the /o option. If the pattern evaluates to the empty string, the last successfully executed regular expression is used instead. See perlre for further explanation on these.

Options are as with m// with the addition of the following replacement specific options:

Any non-whitespace delimiter may replace the slashes. Add space after the s when using a character allowed in identifiers. If single quotes are used, no interpretation is done on the replacement string (the /e modifier overrides this, however). Note that Perl treats backticks as normal delimiters; the replacement text is not evaluated as a command. If the PATTERN is delimited by bracketing quotes, the REPLACEMENT has its own pair of quotes, which may or may not be bracketing quotes, for example, s(foo)(bar) or s<foo>/bar/ . A /e will cause the replacement portion to be treated as a full-fledged Perl expression and evaluated right then and there. It is, however, syntax checked at compile-time. A second e modifier will cause the replacement portion to be eval ed before being run as a Perl expression.

Note the use of $ instead of \ in the last example. Unlike sed , we use the \< digit > form only in the left hand side. Anywhere else it's $< digit >.

Occasionally, you can't use just a /g to get all the changes to occur that you might want. Here are two common cases:

While s/// accepts the /c flag, it has no effect beyond producing a warning if warnings are enabled.

# Quote-Like Operators

A single-quoted, literal string. A backslash represents a backslash unless followed by the delimiter or another backslash, in which case the delimiter or backslash is interpolated.

A double-quoted, interpolated string.

A string which is (possibly) interpolated and then executed as a system command, via /bin/sh or its equivalent if required. Shell wildcards, pipes, and redirections will be honored. Similarly to system , if the string contains no shell metacharacters then it will executed directly. The collected standard output of the command is returned; standard error is unaffected. In scalar context, it comes back as a single (potentially multi-line) string, or undef if the shell (or command) could not be started. In list context, returns a list of lines (however you've defined lines with $/ or $INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR ), or an empty list if the shell (or command) could not be started.

Because backticks do not affect standard error, use shell file descriptor syntax (assuming the shell supports this) if you care to address this. To capture a command's STDERR and STDOUT together:

To capture a command's STDOUT but discard its STDERR:

To capture a command's STDERR but discard its STDOUT (ordering is important here):

To exchange a command's STDOUT and STDERR in order to capture the STDERR but leave its STDOUT to come out the old STDERR:

To read both a command's STDOUT and its STDERR separately, it's easiest to redirect them separately to files, and then read from those files when the program is done:

The STDIN filehandle used by the command is inherited from Perl's STDIN. For example:

will print the sorted contents of the file named "stuff" .

Using single-quote as a delimiter protects the command from Perl's double-quote interpolation, passing it on to the shell instead:

How that string gets evaluated is entirely subject to the command interpreter on your system. On most platforms, you will have to protect shell metacharacters if you want them treated literally. This is in practice difficult to do, as it's unclear how to escape which characters. See perlsec for a clean and safe example of a manual fork() and exec() to emulate backticks safely.

On some platforms (notably DOS-like ones), the shell may not be capable of dealing with multiline commands, so putting newlines in the string may not get you what you want. You may be able to evaluate multiple commands in a single line by separating them with the command separator character, if your shell supports that (for example, ; on many Unix shells and & on the Windows NT cmd shell).

Perl will attempt to flush all files opened for output before starting the child process, but this may not be supported on some platforms (see perlport ). To be safe, you may need to set $| ( $AUTOFLUSH in English ) or call the autoflush() method of IO::Handle on any open handles.

Beware that some command shells may place restrictions on the length of the command line. You must ensure your strings don't exceed this limit after any necessary interpolations. See the platform-specific release notes for more details about your particular environment.

Using this operator can lead to programs that are difficult to port, because the shell commands called vary between systems, and may in fact not be present at all. As one example, the type command under the POSIX shell is very different from the type command under DOS. That doesn't mean you should go out of your way to avoid backticks when they're the right way to get something done. Perl was made to be a glue language, and one of the things it glues together is commands. Just understand what you're getting yourself into.

Like system , backticks put the child process exit code in $? . If you'd like to manually inspect failure, you can check all possible failure modes by inspecting $? like this:

Use the open pragma to control the I/O layers used when reading the output of the command, for example:

qx// can also be called like a function with "readpipe" in perlfunc .

See "I/O Operators" for more discussion.

Evaluates to a list of the words extracted out of STRING , using embedded whitespace as the word delimiters. It can be understood as being roughly equivalent to:

the differences being that it only splits on ASCII whitespace, generates a real list at compile time, and in scalar context it returns the last element in the list. So this expression:

is semantically equivalent to the list:

Some frequently seen examples:

A common mistake is to try to separate the words with commas or to put comments into a multi-line qw -string. For this reason, the use warnings pragma and the -w switch (that is, the $^W variable) produces warnings if the STRING contains the "," or the "#" character.

Transliterates all occurrences of the characters found (or not found if the /c modifier is specified) in the search list with the positionally corresponding character in the replacement list, possibly deleting some, depending on the modifiers specified. It returns the number of characters replaced or deleted. If no string is specified via the =~ or !~ operator, the $_ string is transliterated.

For sed devotees, y is provided as a synonym for tr .

If the /r (non-destructive) option is present, a new copy of the string is made and its characters transliterated, and this copy is returned no matter whether it was modified or not: the original string is always left unchanged. The new copy is always a plain string, even if the input string is an object or a tied variable.

Unless the /r option is used, the string specified with =~ must be a scalar variable, an array element, a hash element, or an assignment to one of those; in other words, an lvalue.

The characters delimitting SEARCHLIST and REPLACEMENTLIST can be any printable character, not just forward slashes. If they are single quotes ( tr' SEARCHLIST ' REPLACEMENTLIST ' ), the only interpolation is removal of \ from pairs of \\ ; so hyphens are interpreted literally rather than specifying a character range.

Otherwise, a character range may be specified with a hyphen, so tr/A-J/0-9/ does the same replacement as tr/ACEGIBDFHJ/0246813579/ .

If the SEARCHLIST is delimited by bracketing quotes, the REPLACEMENTLIST must have its own pair of quotes, which may or may not be bracketing quotes; for example, tr(aeiouy)(yuoiea) or tr[+\-*/]"ABCD" . This final example shows a way to visually clarify what is going on for people who are more familiar with regular expression patterns than with tr , and who may think forward slash delimiters imply that tr is more like a regular expression pattern than it actually is. (Another option might be to use tr[...][...] .)

tr isn't fully like bracketed character classes, just (significantly) more like them than it is to full patterns. For example, characters appearing more than once in either list behave differently here than in patterns, and tr lists do not allow backslashed character classes such as \d or \pL , nor variable interpolation, so "$" and "@" are always treated as literals.

The allowed elements are literals plus \' (meaning a single quote). If the delimiters aren't single quotes, also allowed are any of the escape sequences accepted in double-quoted strings. Escape sequence details are in the table near the beginning of this section .

A hyphen at the beginning or end, or preceded by a backslash is also always considered a literal. Precede a delimiter character with a backslash to allow it.

The tr operator is not equivalent to the tr(1) utility. tr[a-z][A-Z] will uppercase the 26 letters "a" through "z", but for case changing not confined to ASCII, use lc , uc , lcfirst , ucfirst (all documented in perlfunc ), or the substitution operator s/ PATTERN / REPLACEMENT / (with \U , \u , \L , and \l string-interpolation escapes in the REPLACEMENT portion).

Most ranges are unportable between character sets, but certain ones signal Perl to do special handling to make them portable. There are two classes of portable ranges. The first are any subsets of the ranges A-Z , a-z , and 0-9 , when expressed as literal characters.

capitalizes the letters "h" , "i" , "j" , and "k" and nothing else, no matter what the platform's character set is. In contrast, all of

do the same capitalizations as the previous example when run on ASCII platforms, but something completely different on EBCDIC ones.

The second class of portable ranges is invoked when one or both of the range's end points are expressed as \N{...}

removes from $string all the platform's characters which are equivalent to any of Unicode U+0020, U+0021, ... U+007D, U+007E. This is a portable range, and has the same effect on every platform it is run on. In this example, these are the ASCII printable characters. So after this is run, $string has only controls and characters which have no ASCII equivalents.

But, even for portable ranges, it is not generally obvious what is included without having to look things up in the manual. A sound principle is to use only ranges that both begin from, and end at, either ASCII alphabetics of equal case ( b-e , B-E ), or digits ( 1-4 ). Anything else is unclear (and unportable unless \N{...} is used). If in doubt, spell out the character sets in full.

If the /d modifier is specified, any characters specified by SEARCHLIST not found in REPLACEMENTLIST are deleted. (Note that this is slightly more flexible than the behavior of some tr programs, which delete anything they find in the SEARCHLIST , period.)

If the /s modifier is specified, sequences of characters, all in a row, that were transliterated to the same character are squashed down to a single instance of that character.

If the /d modifier is used, the REPLACEMENTLIST is always interpreted exactly as specified. Otherwise, if the REPLACEMENTLIST is shorter than the SEARCHLIST , the final character, if any, is replicated until it is long enough. There won't be a final character if and only if the REPLACEMENTLIST is empty, in which case REPLACEMENTLIST is copied from SEARCHLIST . An empty REPLACEMENTLIST is useful for counting characters in a class, or for squashing character sequences in a class.

If the /c modifier is specified, the characters to be transliterated are the ones NOT in SEARCHLIST , that is, it is complemented. If /d and/or /s are also specified, they apply to the complemented SEARCHLIST . Recall, that if REPLACEMENTLIST is empty (except under /d ) a copy of SEARCHLIST is used instead. That copy is made after complementing under /c . SEARCHLIST is sorted by code point order after complementing, and any REPLACEMENTLIST is applied to that sorted result. This means that under /c , the order of the characters specified in SEARCHLIST is irrelevant. This can lead to different results on EBCDIC systems if REPLACEMENTLIST contains more than one character, hence it is generally non-portable to use /c with such a REPLACEMENTLIST .

Another way of describing the operation is this: If /c is specified, the SEARCHLIST is sorted by code point order, then complemented. If REPLACEMENTLIST is empty and /d is not specified, REPLACEMENTLIST is replaced by a copy of SEARCHLIST (as modified under /c ), and these potentially modified lists are used as the basis for what follows. Any character in the target string that isn't in SEARCHLIST is passed through unchanged. Every other character in the target string is replaced by the character in REPLACEMENTLIST that positionally corresponds to its mate in SEARCHLIST , except that under /s , the 2nd and following characters are squeezed out in a sequence of characters in a row that all translate to the same character. If SEARCHLIST is longer than REPLACEMENTLIST , characters in the target string that match a character in SEARCHLIST that doesn't have a correspondence in REPLACEMENTLIST are either deleted from the target string if /d is specified; or replaced by the final character in REPLACEMENTLIST if /d isn't specified.

Some examples:

If multiple transliterations are given for a character, only the first one is used:

will transliterate any A to X.

Because the transliteration table is built at compile time, neither the SEARCHLIST nor the REPLACEMENTLIST are subjected to double quote interpolation. That means that if you want to use variables, you must use an eval() :

A line-oriented form of quoting is based on the shell "here-document" syntax. Following a << you specify a string to terminate the quoted material, and all lines following the current line down to the terminating string are the value of the item.

Prefixing the terminating string with a ~ specifies that you want to use "Indented Here-docs" (see below).

The terminating string may be either an identifier (a word), or some quoted text. An unquoted identifier works like double quotes. There may not be a space between the << and the identifier, unless the identifier is explicitly quoted. The terminating string must appear by itself (unquoted and with no surrounding whitespace) on the terminating line.

If the terminating string is quoted, the type of quotes used determine the treatment of the text.

Double quotes indicate that the text will be interpolated using exactly the same rules as normal double quoted strings.

Single quotes indicate the text is to be treated literally with no interpolation of its content. This is similar to single quoted strings except that backslashes have no special meaning, with \\ being treated as two backslashes and not one as they would in every other quoting construct.

Just as in the shell, a backslashed bareword following the << means the same thing as a single-quoted string does:

This is the only form of quoting in perl where there is no need to worry about escaping content, something that code generators can and do make good use of.

The content of the here doc is treated just as it would be if the string were embedded in backticks. Thus the content is interpolated as though it were double quoted and then executed via the shell, with the results of the execution returned.

The here-doc modifier ~ allows you to indent your here-docs to make the code more readable:

This will print...

...with no leading whitespace.

The line containing the delimiter that marks the end of the here-doc determines the indentation template for the whole thing. Compilation croaks if any non-empty line inside the here-doc does not begin with the precise indentation of the terminating line. (An empty line consists of the single character "\n".) For example, suppose the terminating line begins with a tab character followed by 4 space characters. Every non-empty line in the here-doc must begin with a tab followed by 4 spaces. They are stripped from each line, and any leading white space remaining on a line serves as the indentation for that line. Currently, only the TAB and SPACE characters are treated as whitespace for this purpose. Tabs and spaces may be mixed, but are matched exactly; tabs remain tabs and are not expanded.

Additional beginning whitespace (beyond what preceded the delimiter) will be preserved:

Finally, the modifier may be used with all of the forms mentioned above:

And whitespace may be used between the ~ and quoted delimiters:

It is possible to stack multiple here-docs in a row:

Just don't forget that you have to put a semicolon on the end to finish the statement, as Perl doesn't know you're not going to try to do this:

If you want to remove the line terminator from your here-docs, use chomp() .

If you want your here-docs to be indented with the rest of the code, use the <<~FOO construct described under "Indented Here-docs" :

If you use a here-doc within a delimited construct, such as in s///eg , the quoted material must still come on the line following the <<FOO marker, which means it may be inside the delimited construct:

It works this way as of Perl 5.18. Historically, it was inconsistent, and you would have to write

outside of string evals.

Additionally, quoting rules for the end-of-string identifier are unrelated to Perl's quoting rules. q() , qq() , and the like are not supported in place of '' and "" , and the only interpolation is for backslashing the quoting character:

Finally, quoted strings cannot span multiple lines. The general rule is that the identifier must be a string literal. Stick with that, and you should be safe.

# Gory details of parsing quoted constructs

When presented with something that might have several different interpretations, Perl uses the DWIM (that's "Do What I Mean") principle to pick the most probable interpretation. This strategy is so successful that Perl programmers often do not suspect the ambivalence of what they write. But from time to time, Perl's notions differ substantially from what the author honestly meant.

This section hopes to clarify how Perl handles quoted constructs. Although the most common reason to learn this is to unravel labyrinthine regular expressions, because the initial steps of parsing are the same for all quoting operators, they are all discussed together.

The most important Perl parsing rule is the first one discussed below: when processing a quoted construct, Perl first finds the end of that construct, then interprets its contents. If you understand this rule, you may skip the rest of this section on the first reading. The other rules are likely to contradict the user's expectations much less frequently than this first one.

Some passes discussed below are performed concurrently, but because their results are the same, we consider them individually. For different quoting constructs, Perl performs different numbers of passes, from one to four, but these passes are always performed in the same order.

The first pass is finding the end of the quoted construct. This results in saving to a safe location a copy of the text (between the starting and ending delimiters), normalized as necessary to avoid needing to know what the original delimiters were.

If the construct is a here-doc, the ending delimiter is a line that has a terminating string as the content. Therefore <<EOF is terminated by EOF immediately followed by "\n" and starting from the first column of the terminating line. When searching for the terminating line of a here-doc, nothing is skipped. In other words, lines after the here-doc syntax are compared with the terminating string line by line.

For the constructs except here-docs, single characters are used as starting and ending delimiters. If the starting delimiter is an opening punctuation (that is ( , [ , { , or < ), the ending delimiter is the corresponding closing punctuation (that is ) , ] , } , or > ). If the starting delimiter is an unpaired character like / or a closing punctuation, the ending delimiter is the same as the starting delimiter. Therefore a / terminates a qq// construct, while a ] terminates both qq[] and qq]] constructs.

When searching for single-character delimiters, escaped delimiters and \\ are skipped. For example, while searching for terminating / , combinations of \\ and \/ are skipped. If the delimiters are bracketing, nested pairs are also skipped. For example, while searching for a closing ] paired with the opening [ , combinations of \\ , \] , and \[ are all skipped, and nested [ and ] are skipped as well. However, when backslashes are used as the delimiters (like qq\\ and tr\\\ ), nothing is skipped. During the search for the end, backslashes that escape delimiters or other backslashes are removed (exactly speaking, they are not copied to the safe location).

For constructs with three-part delimiters ( s/// , y/// , and tr/// ), the search is repeated once more. If the first delimiter is not an opening punctuation, the three delimiters must be the same, such as s!!! and tr))) , in which case the second delimiter terminates the left part and starts the right part at once. If the left part is delimited by bracketing punctuation (that is () , [] , {} , or <> ), the right part needs another pair of delimiters such as s(){} and tr[]// . In these cases, whitespace and comments are allowed between the two parts, although the comment must follow at least one whitespace character; otherwise a character expected as the start of the comment may be regarded as the starting delimiter of the right part.

During this search no attention is paid to the semantics of the construct. Thus:

do not form legal quoted expressions. The quoted part ends on the first " and / , and the rest happens to be a syntax error. Because the slash that terminated m// was followed by a SPACE , the example above is not m//x , but rather m// with no /x modifier. So the embedded # is interpreted as a literal # .

Also no attention is paid to \c\ (multichar control char syntax) during this search. Thus the second \ in qq/\c\/ is interpreted as a part of \/ , and the following / is not recognized as a delimiter. Instead, use \034 or \x1c at the end of quoted constructs.

The next step is interpolation in the text obtained, which is now delimiter-independent. There are multiple cases.

No interpolation is performed. Note that the combination \\ is left intact, since escaped delimiters are not available for here-docs.

No interpolation is performed at this stage. Any backslashed sequences including \\ are treated at the stage of "Parsing regular expressions" .

The only interpolation is removal of \ from pairs of \\ . Therefore "-" in tr''' and y''' is treated literally as a hyphen and no character range is available. \1 in the replacement of s''' does not work as $1 .

No variable interpolation occurs. String modifying combinations for case and quoting such as \Q , \U , and \E are not recognized. The other escape sequences such as \200 and \t and backslashed characters such as \\ and \- are converted to appropriate literals. The character "-" is treated specially and therefore \- is treated as a literal "-" .

\Q , \U , \u , \L , \l , \F (possibly paired with \E ) are converted to corresponding Perl constructs. Thus, "$foo\Qbaz$bar" is converted to $foo . (quotemeta("baz" . $bar)) internally. The other escape sequences such as \200 and \t and backslashed characters such as \\ and \- are replaced with appropriate expansions.

Let it be stressed that whatever falls between \Q and \E is interpolated in the usual way. Something like "\Q\\E" has no \E inside. Instead, it has \Q , \\ , and E , so the result is the same as for "\\\\E" . As a general rule, backslashes between \Q and \E may lead to counterintuitive results. So, "\Q\t\E" is converted to quotemeta("\t") , which is the same as "\\\t" (since TAB is not alphanumeric). Note also that:

may be closer to the conjectural intention of the writer of "\Q\t\E" .

Interpolated scalars and arrays are converted internally to the join and "." catenation operations. Thus, "$foo XXX '@arr'" becomes:

All operations above are performed simultaneously, left to right.

Because the result of "\Q STRING \E" has all metacharacters quoted, there is no way to insert a literal $ or @ inside a \Q\E pair. If protected by \ , $ will be quoted to become "\\\$" ; if not, it is interpreted as the start of an interpolated scalar.

Note also that the interpolation code needs to make a decision on where the interpolated scalar ends. For instance, whether "a $x -> {c}" really means:

Most of the time, the longest possible text that does not include spaces between components and which contains matching braces or brackets. because the outcome may be determined by voting based on heuristic estimators, the result is not strictly predictable. Fortunately, it's usually correct for ambiguous cases.

Processing of \Q , \U , \u , \L , \l , \F and interpolation happens as with qq// constructs.

It is at this step that \1 is begrudgingly converted to $1 in the replacement text of s/// , in order to correct the incorrigible sed hackers who haven't picked up the saner idiom yet. A warning is emitted if the use warnings pragma or the -w command-line flag (that is, the $^W variable) was set.

Processing of \Q , \U , \u , \L , \l , \F , \E , and interpolation happens (almost) as with qq// constructs.

Processing of \N{...} is also done here, and compiled into an intermediate form for the regex compiler. (This is because, as mentioned below, the regex compilation may be done at execution time, and \N{...} is a compile-time construct.)

However any other combinations of \ followed by a character are not substituted but only skipped, in order to parse them as regular expressions at the following step. As \c is skipped at this step, @ of \c@ in RE is possibly treated as an array symbol (for example @foo ), even though the same text in qq// gives interpolation of \c@ .

Code blocks such as (?{BLOCK}) are handled by temporarily passing control back to the perl parser, in a similar way that an interpolated array subscript expression such as "foo$array[1+f("[xyz")]bar" would be.

Moreover, inside (?{BLOCK}) , (?# comment ) , and a # -comment in a /x -regular expression, no processing is performed whatsoever. This is the first step at which the presence of the /x modifier is relevant.

Interpolation in patterns has several quirks: $| , $( , $) , @+ and @- are not interpolated, and constructs $var[SOMETHING] are voted (by several different estimators) to be either an array element or $var followed by an RE alternative. This is where the notation ${arr[$bar]} comes handy: /${arr[0-9]}/ is interpreted as array element -9 , not as a regular expression from the variable $arr followed by a digit, which would be the interpretation of /$arr[0-9]/ . Since voting among different estimators may occur, the result is not predictable.

The lack of processing of \\ creates specific restrictions on the post-processed text. If the delimiter is / , one cannot get the combination \/ into the result of this step. / will finish the regular expression, \/ will be stripped to / on the previous step, and \\/ will be left as is. Because / is equivalent to \/ inside a regular expression, this does not matter unless the delimiter happens to be character special to the RE engine, such as in s*foo*bar* , m[foo] , or m?foo? ; or an alphanumeric char, as in:

In the RE above, which is intentionally obfuscated for illustration, the delimiter is m , the modifier is mx , and after delimiter-removal the RE is the same as for m/ ^ a \s* b /mx . There's more than one reason you're encouraged to restrict your delimiters to non-alphanumeric, non-whitespace choices.

This step is the last one for all constructs except regular expressions, which are processed further.

Previous steps were performed during the compilation of Perl code, but this one happens at run time, although it may be optimized to be calculated at compile time if appropriate. After preprocessing described above, and possibly after evaluation if concatenation, joining, casing translation, or metaquoting are involved, the resulting string is passed to the RE engine for compilation.

Whatever happens in the RE engine might be better discussed in perlre , but for the sake of continuity, we shall do so here.

This is another step where the presence of the /x modifier is relevant. The RE engine scans the string from left to right and converts it into a finite automaton.

Backslashed characters are either replaced with corresponding literal strings (as with \{ ), or else they generate special nodes in the finite automaton (as with \b ). Characters special to the RE engine (such as | ) generate corresponding nodes or groups of nodes. (?#...) comments are ignored. All the rest is either converted to literal strings to match, or else is ignored (as is whitespace and # -style comments if /x is present).

Parsing of the bracketed character class construct, [...] , is rather different than the rule used for the rest of the pattern. The terminator of this construct is found using the same rules as for finding the terminator of a {} -delimited construct, the only exception being that ] immediately following [ is treated as though preceded by a backslash.

The terminator of runtime (?{...}) is found by temporarily switching control to the perl parser, which should stop at the point where the logically balancing terminating } is found.

It is possible to inspect both the string given to RE engine and the resulting finite automaton. See the arguments debug / debugcolor in the use re pragma, as well as Perl's -Dr command-line switch documented in "Command Switches" in perlrun .

This step is listed for completeness only. Since it does not change semantics, details of this step are not documented and are subject to change without notice. This step is performed over the finite automaton that was generated during the previous pass.

It is at this stage that split() silently optimizes /^/ to mean /^/m .

# I/O Operators

There are several I/O operators you should know about.

A string enclosed by backticks (grave accents) first undergoes double-quote interpolation. It is then interpreted as an external command, and the output of that command is the value of the backtick string, like in a shell. In scalar context, a single string consisting of all output is returned. In list context, a list of values is returned, one per line of output. (You can set $/ to use a different line terminator.) The command is executed each time the pseudo-literal is evaluated. The status value of the command is returned in $? (see perlvar for the interpretation of $? ). Unlike in csh , no translation is done on the return data--newlines remain newlines. Unlike in any of the shells, single quotes do not hide variable names in the command from interpretation. To pass a literal dollar-sign through to the shell you need to hide it with a backslash. The generalized form of backticks is qx// , or you can call the "readpipe" in perlfunc function. (Because backticks always undergo shell expansion as well, see perlsec for security concerns.)

In scalar context, evaluating a filehandle in angle brackets yields the next line from that file (the newline, if any, included), or undef at end-of-file or on error. When $/ is set to undef (sometimes known as file-slurp mode) and the file is empty, it returns '' the first time, followed by undef subsequently.

Ordinarily you must assign the returned value to a variable, but there is one situation where an automatic assignment happens. If and only if the input symbol is the only thing inside the conditional of a while statement (even if disguised as a for(;;) loop), the value is automatically assigned to the global variable $_ , destroying whatever was there previously. (This may seem like an odd thing to you, but you'll use the construct in almost every Perl script you write.) The $_ variable is not implicitly localized. You'll have to put a local $_; before the loop if you want that to happen. Furthermore, if the input symbol or an explicit assignment of the input symbol to a scalar is used as a while / for condition, then the condition actually tests for definedness of the expression's value, not for its regular truth value.

Thus the following lines are equivalent:

This also behaves similarly, but assigns to a lexical variable instead of to $_ :

In these loop constructs, the assigned value (whether assignment is automatic or explicit) is then tested to see whether it is defined. The defined test avoids problems where the line has a string value that would be treated as false by Perl; for example a "" or a "0" with no trailing newline. If you really mean for such values to terminate the loop, they should be tested for explicitly:

In other boolean contexts, < FILEHANDLE > without an explicit defined test or comparison elicits a warning if the use warnings pragma or the -w command-line switch (the $^W variable) is in effect.

The filehandles STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR are predefined. (The filehandles stdin , stdout , and stderr will also work except in packages, where they would be interpreted as local identifiers rather than global.) Additional filehandles may be created with the open() function, amongst others. See perlopentut and "open" in perlfunc for details on this.

If a < FILEHANDLE > is used in a context that is looking for a list, a list comprising all input lines is returned, one line per list element. It's easy to grow to a rather large data space this way, so use with care.

< FILEHANDLE > may also be spelled readline(* FILEHANDLE ) . See "readline" in perlfunc .

The null filehandle <> (sometimes called the diamond operator) is special: it can be used to emulate the behavior of sed and awk , and any other Unix filter program that takes a list of filenames, doing the same to each line of input from all of them. Input from <> comes either from standard input, or from each file listed on the command line. Here's how it works: the first time <> is evaluated, the @ARGV array is checked, and if it is empty, $ARGV[0] is set to "-" , which when opened gives you standard input. The @ARGV array is then processed as a list of filenames. The loop

is equivalent to the following Perl-like pseudo code:

except that it isn't so cumbersome to say, and will actually work. It really does shift the @ARGV array and put the current filename into the $ARGV variable. It also uses filehandle ARGV internally. <> is just a synonym for <ARGV> , which is magical. (The pseudo code above doesn't work because it treats <ARGV> as non-magical.)

Since the null filehandle uses the two argument form of "open" in perlfunc it interprets special characters, so if you have a script like this:

and call it with perl dangerous.pl 'rm -rfv *|' , it actually opens a pipe, executes the rm command and reads rm 's output from that pipe. If you want all items in @ARGV to be interpreted as file names, you can use the module ARGV::readonly from CPAN, or use the double diamond bracket:

Using double angle brackets inside of a while causes the open to use the three argument form (with the second argument being < ), so all arguments in ARGV are treated as literal filenames (including "-" ). (Note that for convenience, if you use <<>> and if @ARGV is empty, it will still read from the standard input.)

You can modify @ARGV before the first <> as long as the array ends up containing the list of filenames you really want. Line numbers ( $. ) continue as though the input were one big happy file. See the example in "eof" in perlfunc for how to reset line numbers on each file.

If you want to set @ARGV to your own list of files, go right ahead. This sets @ARGV to all plain text files if no @ARGV was given:

You can even set them to pipe commands. For example, this automatically filters compressed arguments through gzip :

If you want to pass switches into your script, you can use one of the Getopts modules or put a loop on the front like this:

The <> symbol will return undef for end-of-file only once. If you call it again after this, it will assume you are processing another @ARGV list, and if you haven't set @ARGV , will read input from STDIN.

If what the angle brackets contain is a simple scalar variable (for example, $foo ), then that variable contains the name of the filehandle to input from, or its typeglob, or a reference to the same. For example:

If what's within the angle brackets is neither a filehandle nor a simple scalar variable containing a filehandle name, typeglob, or typeglob reference, it is interpreted as a filename pattern to be globbed, and either a list of filenames or the next filename in the list is returned, depending on context. This distinction is determined on syntactic grounds alone. That means <$x> is always a readline() from an indirect handle, but <$hash{key}> is always a glob() . That's because $x is a simple scalar variable, but $hash{key} is not--it's a hash element. Even <$x > (note the extra space) is treated as glob("$x ") , not readline($x) .

One level of double-quote interpretation is done first, but you can't say <$foo> because that's an indirect filehandle as explained in the previous paragraph. (In older versions of Perl, programmers would insert curly brackets to force interpretation as a filename glob: <${foo}> . These days, it's considered cleaner to call the internal function directly as glob($foo) , which is probably the right way to have done it in the first place.) For example:

is roughly equivalent to:

except that the globbing is actually done internally using the standard File::Glob extension. Of course, the shortest way to do the above is:

A (file)glob evaluates its (embedded) argument only when it is starting a new list. All values must be read before it will start over. In list context, this isn't important because you automatically get them all anyway. However, in scalar context the operator returns the next value each time it's called, or undef when the list has run out. As with filehandle reads, an automatic defined is generated when the glob occurs in the test part of a while , because legal glob returns (for example, a file called 0 ) would otherwise terminate the loop. Again, undef is returned only once. So if you're expecting a single value from a glob, it is much better to say

because the latter will alternate between returning a filename and returning false.

If you're trying to do variable interpolation, it's definitely better to use the glob() function, because the older notation can cause people to become confused with the indirect filehandle notation.

If an angle-bracket-based globbing expression is used as the condition of a while or for loop, then it will be implicitly assigned to $_ . If either a globbing expression or an explicit assignment of a globbing expression to a scalar is used as a while / for condition, then the condition actually tests for definedness of the expression's value, not for its regular truth value.

# Constant Folding

Like C, Perl does a certain amount of expression evaluation at compile time whenever it determines that all arguments to an operator are static and have no side effects. In particular, string concatenation happens at compile time between literals that don't do variable substitution. Backslash interpolation also happens at compile time. You can say

and this all reduces to one string internally. Likewise, if you say

the compiler precomputes the number which that expression represents so that the interpreter won't have to.

Perl doesn't officially have a no-op operator, but the bare constants 0 and 1 are special-cased not to produce a warning in void context, so you can for example safely do

# Bitwise String Operators

Bitstrings of any size may be manipulated by the bitwise operators ( ~ | & ^ ).

If the operands to a binary bitwise op are strings of different sizes, | and ^ ops act as though the shorter operand had additional zero bits on the right, while the & op acts as though the longer operand were truncated to the length of the shorter. The granularity for such extension or truncation is one or more bytes.

If you are intending to manipulate bitstrings, be certain that you're supplying bitstrings: If an operand is a number, that will imply a numeric bitwise operation. You may explicitly show which type of operation you intend by using "" or 0+ , as in the examples below.

This somewhat unpredictable behavior can be avoided with the "bitwise" feature, new in Perl 5.22. You can enable it via use feature 'bitwise' or use v5.28 . Before Perl 5.28, it used to emit a warning in the "experimental::bitwise" category. Under this feature, the four standard bitwise operators ( ~ | & ^ ) are always numeric. Adding a dot after each operator ( ~. |. &. ^. ) forces it to treat its operands as strings:

The assignment variants of these operators ( &= |= ^= &.= |.= ^.= ) behave likewise under the feature.

It is a fatal error if an operand contains a character whose ordinal value is above 0xFF, and hence not expressible except in UTF-8. The operation is performed on a non-UTF-8 copy for other operands encoded in UTF-8. See "Byte and Character Semantics" in perlunicode .

See "vec" in perlfunc for information on how to manipulate individual bits in a bit vector.

# Integer Arithmetic

By default, Perl assumes that it must do most of its arithmetic in floating point. But by saying

you may tell the compiler to use integer operations (see integer for a detailed explanation) from here to the end of the enclosing BLOCK. An inner BLOCK may countermand this by saying

which lasts until the end of that BLOCK. Note that this doesn't mean everything is an integer, merely that Perl will use integer operations for arithmetic, comparison, and bitwise operators. For example, even under use integer , if you take the sqrt(2) , you'll still get 1.4142135623731 or so.

Used on numbers, the bitwise operators ( & | ^ ~ << >> ) always produce integral results. (But see also "Bitwise String Operators" .) However, use integer still has meaning for them. By default, their results are interpreted as unsigned integers, but if use integer is in effect, their results are interpreted as signed integers. For example, ~0 usually evaluates to a large integral value. However, use integer; ~0 is -1 on two's-complement machines.

# Floating-point Arithmetic

While use integer provides integer-only arithmetic, there is no analogous mechanism to provide automatic rounding or truncation to a certain number of decimal places. For rounding to a certain number of digits, sprintf() or printf() is usually the easiest route. See perlfaq4 .

Floating-point numbers are only approximations to what a mathematician would call real numbers. There are infinitely more reals than floats, so some corners must be cut. For example:

Testing for exact floating-point equality or inequality is not a good idea. Here's a (relatively expensive) work-around to compare whether two floating-point numbers are equal to a particular number of decimal places. See Knuth, volume II, for a more robust treatment of this topic.

The POSIX module (part of the standard perl distribution) implements ceil() , floor() , and other mathematical and trigonometric functions. The Math::Complex module (part of the standard perl distribution) defines mathematical functions that work on both the reals and the imaginary numbers. Math::Complex is not as efficient as POSIX, but POSIX can't work with complex numbers.

Rounding in financial applications can have serious implications, and the rounding method used should be specified precisely. In these cases, it probably pays not to trust whichever system rounding is being used by Perl, but to instead implement the rounding function you need yourself.

# Bigger Numbers

The standard Math::BigInt , Math::BigRat , and Math::BigFloat modules, along with the bignum , bigint , and bigrat pragmas, provide variable-precision arithmetic and overloaded operators, although they're currently pretty slow. At the cost of some space and considerable speed, they avoid the normal pitfalls associated with limited-precision representations.

Or with rationals:

Several modules let you calculate with unlimited or fixed precision (bound only by memory and CPU time). There are also some non-standard modules that provide faster implementations via external C libraries.

Here is a short, but incomplete summary:

Choose wisely.

Perldoc Browser is maintained by Dan Book ( DBOOK ). Please contact him via the GitHub issue tracker or email regarding any issues with the site itself, search, or rendering of documentation.

The Perl documentation is maintained by the Perl 5 Porters in the development of Perl. Please contact them via the Perl issue tracker , the mailing list , or IRC to report any issues with the contents or format of the documentation.

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Perl | Operators | Set – 1

Operators are the main building block of any programming language. Operators allow the programmer to perform different kinds of operations on operands. In Perl , operators symbols will be different for different kind of operands(like scalars and string). Operators Can be categorized based upon their different functionality:

Arithmetic Operators

Relational Operators

Logical Operators

Bitwise Operators

Assignment Operators

Ternary Operator

These are used to perform arithmetic/mathematical operations on operands. 

• Addition: ‘ + ‘ operator is used to add the values of the two operands. For Example:
• Subtraction: ‘ – ‘ operator is used to subtract right hand operand from left hand operand. For Example:
• Multiplication: ‘ * ‘ operator is used to multiplies the value on either side of the operator. For Example:
• Division Operator: ‘ / ‘ operator returns the remainder when first operand is divided by the second. For Example:
• Modulus Operator: ‘ % ‘ operator is used to divide left hand operand from right operand and returns remainder. For Example:
• Exponent Operator: ‘ ** ‘ operator is used to perform the exponential(power) calculation on operands. For Example:

Program: To demonstrate the arithmetic operators

Relational operators are used for comparison of two values. These operators will return either 1 (true) or nothing(i.e. 0(false)) . Sometimes these operators are also termed as the Equality Operators . These operators have the different symbols to operate on strings. To know about Comparison Operators operation on String you can refer to this . 

• Equal To Operator: ‘==’ Check if two values are equal or not. If equals then return 1 otherwise return nothing.
• Not equal To Operator: ‘!=’ Check if the two values are equal or not. If not equal then returns 1 otherwise returns nothing.
• Comparison of equal to Operator: ‘< = >’ If left operand is less than right then returns -1, if equal returns 0 else returns 1.
• Greater than Operator: ‘>’ If left operand is greater than right returns 1 else returns nothing.
• Less than Operator: ‘<‘ If left operand is lesser than right returns 1 else returns nothing.
• Greater than equal to Operator: ‘>=’ If left operand is greater than or equal to right returns 1 else returns nothing.
• Less than equal to Operator: ‘<=’ If left operand is lesser than or equal to right returns 1 else returns nothing.

Program: To illustrate the Relational Operators in Perl 

Output:  

These operators are used to combine two or more conditions/constraints or to complement the evaluation of the original condition in consideration.

• Logical AND: The ‘ and ’ operator returns true when both the conditions in consideration are satisfied. For example, $a and $b is true when both a and b both are true (i.e. non-zero). You can use also && .
• Logical OR: The ‘ or ’ operator returns true when one (or both) of the conditions in consideration is satisfied. For example, $a or $b is true if one of a or b is true (i.e. non-zero). Of course, it gives result “true” when both a and b are true. You can use also ||
• Logical NOT: The ‘not’ operator will give 1 if the condition in consideration is satisfied. For example, not($d) is true if $d is 0.

Program: To demonstrate the working of Logical Operators:  

These operators are used to perform the bitwise operation. It will first convert the number into bits and perform the bit-level operation on the operands. 

• & (bitwise AND) Takes two numbers as operands and does AND on every bit of two numbers. The result of AND is 1 only if both bits are 1. For example
• | (bitwise OR) Takes two numbers as operands and does OR on every bit of two numbers. The result of OR is 1 any of the two bits is 1. For example
• ^ (bitwise XOR) Takes two numbers as operands and does XOR on every bit of two numbers. The result of XOR is 1 if the two bits are different. For example
• ~ (Complement Operator) This is unary operator act as flipping bits. It’s work is to reverse the bits and gives result using 2’s complement form due to a signed binary number.
• (<<) Binary Left Shift Operator will takes two numbers, left shifts the bits of the first operand, the second operand decides the number of places to shift. It performs multiplication of the left operand by the number of times specified by the right operand. For Example:
• (>>)Binary Right Shift Operator will take two numbers, right shifts the bits of the first operand, the second operand decides the number of places to shift. It performs division of the left operand by the number of times specified by right operand. For Example:

Program: To demonstrate the working of bitwise operators: 

Assignment operators are used to assigning a value to a variable. The left side operand of the assignment operator is a variable and right side operand of the assignment operator is a value.  Different types of assignment operators are shown below: 

• “=”(Simple Assignment) : This is the simplest assignment operator. This operator is used to assign the value on the right to the variable on the left.  Example :
• “+=”(Add Assignment) : This operator is combination of ‘+’ and ‘=’ operators. This operator first adds the current value of the variable on left to the value on the right and then assigns the result to the variable on the left.  Example :
• If initially value stored in a is 5. Then ($a += 6) = 11.
• “-=”(Subtract Assignment) : This operator is combination of ‘-‘ and ‘=’ operators. This operator first subtracts the current value of the variable on left from the value on the right and then assigns the result to the variable on the left.  Example :
• If initially value stored in a is 8. Then ($a -= 6) = 2.
• “*=”(Multiply Assignment) : This operator is combination of ‘*’ and ‘=’ operators. This operator first multiplies the current value of the variable on left to the value on the right and then assigns the result to the variable on the left.  Example :
• If initially value stored in a is 5. Then ($a *= 6) = 30.
• “/=”(Division Assignment) : This operator is combination of ‘/’ and ‘=’ operators. This operator first divides the current value of the variable on left by the value on the right and then assigns the result to the variable on the left.  Example :
• If initially value stored in a is 6. Then ($a /= 2) = 3.
• “%=”(Modulus Assignment) : This operator is combination of ‘%’ and ‘=’ operators. This operator first modulo the current value of the variable on left by the value on the right and then assigns the result to the variable on the left.  Example :   
• If initially value stored in a is 6. Then ($a %= 2) = 0.
• “**=”(Exponent Assignment) : This operator is combination of ‘**’ and ‘=’ operators. This operator first exponent the current value of the variable on left by the value on the right and then assigns the result to the variable on the left.  Example :
• If initially, value stored in a is 6. Then ($a **= 2) = 36.

Program: To demonstrate the working of Assignment Operators 

It is a conditional operator which is a shorthand version of if-else statement. It has three operands and hence the name ternary. It will return one of two values depending on the value of a Boolean expression.

Syntax:  

Explanation:   

Example:   

Note: In the Ternary operator the condition can be any expression also which can make by using the different operators like relational operators, logical operators, etc.

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Home » Perl Operators

Perl Operators

Summary : in this tutorial, you’ll learn about Perl operators including numeric operators, string operators, and logical operators.

Numeric operators

Perl provides numeric operators to help you operate on numbers including arithmetic, Boolean and bitwise operations. Let’s examine the different kinds of operators in more detail.

Arithmetic operators

Perl arithmetic operators deal with basic math such as adding, subtracting, multiplying, diving, etc. To add (+ ) or subtract (-) numbers, you would do something as follows:

To multiply or divide numbers, you use divide (/) and multiply (*) operators as follows:

When you combine adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing operators together, Perl will perform the calculation in an order, which is known as operator precedence.

The multiply and divide operators have higher precedence than add and subtract operators, therefore, Perl performs multiplying and dividing before adding and subtracting. See the following example:

Perl performs 20/2 and 5*2 first, therefore you will get 10 + 10 – 10 = 10.

You can use brackets () to force Perl to perform calculations based on the precedence you want as shown in the following example:

To raise one number to the power of another number, you use the exponentiation operator (**) e.g., 2**3 = 2 * 2 * 2. The following example demonstrates the exponentiation operators:

To get the remainder of the division of one number by another, you use the modulo operator (%).

It is handy to use the modulo operator (%) to check if a number is odd or even by dividing it by 2 to get the remainder. If the remainder is zero, the number is even, otherwise, the number is odd. See the following example:

Bitwise Operators

Bitwise operators allow you to operate on numbers one bit at a time. Think of a number as a series of bits e.g., 125 can be represented in binary form as 1111101 . Perl provides all basic bitwise operators including and (&), or (|), exclusive or (^) , not (~) operators, shift right (>>), and shift left (<<) operators.

The bitwise operators perform from right to left. In other words, bitwise operators perform from the rightmost bit to the leftmost bit.

The following example demonstrates all bitwise operators:

If you are not familiar with bitwise operations, we are highly recommended you check out bitwise operations on Wikipedia .

Comparison operators for numbers

Perl provides all comparison operators for numbers as listed in the following table:

All the operators in the table above are obvious except the number comparison operator  <=> which is also known as spaceship operator.

The number comparison operator is often used in sorting numbers. See the code below:

The number operator returns:

• 1 if $a is greater than $b
• 0 if $a and $b are equal
• -1 if $a is lower than $b

Take a look at the following example:

String operators

String comparison operators.

Perl provides the corresponding comparison operators for strings. Let’s take a look a the table below:

String concatenation operators

Perl provides the concatenation ( . ) and repetition ( x ) operators that allow you to manipulate strings. Let’s take a look at the concatenation operator (.) first:

The concatenation operator (.) combines two strings together.

A string can be repeated with the repetition ( x ) operator:

The chomp() operator

The chomp() operator (or function ) removes the last character in a string and returns a number of characters that were removed. The chomp() operator is very useful when dealing with the user’s input because it helps you remove the new line character \n from the string that the user entered.

The <STDIN> is used to get input from users.

Logical operators

Logical operators are often used in control statements such as if , while ,  given, etc.,   to control the flow of the program. The following are logical operators in Perl:

• $a && $b performs the logic AND of two variables or expressions. The logical && operator checks if both variables or expressions are true.
• $a || $b performs the logic OR of two variables or expressions. The logical || operator checks whether a variable or expression is true.
• !$a performs the logic NOT of the variable or expression. The logic ! operator inverts the value of the following variable or expression. In the other words, it converts true to false or false to true .

You will learn how to use logical operators in conditional statements such as  if ,  while  and  given .

In this tutorial, you’ve learned some basic Perl operators. These operators are very important so make sure that you get familiar with them.

Perl Programming/Operators

• 1 Introduction
• 2.1.1 Binary
• 2.1.2 Unary
• 2.2 Assignment
• 2.3 Comparison
• 2.4.1 Conditionals
• 2.4.2 Partial evaluation
• 2.5 Bitwise
• 2.7 Comparing strings
• 2.8 File Test
• 2.10 Precedence
• 2.11 The smart match operator
• 2.12.1 The doubledollar
• 2.12.2 The arrow operator

Introduction [ edit | edit source ]

Perl's set of operators borrows extensively from the C programming language . Perl expands on this by infusing new operators for string functions ( .= , x , eq , ne , etc.). C by contrast delegates its subset of Perl functionality to a library strings.h , and ctype.h , and includes no such functionality by default compilation. Perl also includes a highly flexible Regex engine inspired by Sed with improvements to standard POSIX regexes, most notably the support of Unicode.

The operators [ edit | edit source ]

Arithmetic [ edit | edit source ].

Most arithmetic operators are binary operators; this means they take two arguments. Unary operators only take one argument. Arithmetic operators are very simple and often transparent.

Binary [ edit | edit source ]

All the basic arithmetic operators, addition ( + ), subtraction ( - ), multiplication ( * ), and division ( / ), and the modulus operator % exist. Modulus returns the remainder of a division ( / ) operation.

The exponentiation operator is ** . It allows you to raise one value to the power of another. If you raise to a fraction you will get the root of the number. In this example the second result when raised to the power of 2 should return 2 ( (2**(1/2))**2 = 2 ).

The function sqrt is provided for finding a square root. Other fractional powers (i.e., (1/5), (2/13), (7/5), and similar) are suitably found using the ** operator.

Unary [ edit | edit source ]

The auto-decrement ( -- ), and auto-increment ( ++ ) operators are unary operators. They alter the scalar variable they operate on by one logical unit. On numbers, they add or subtract one. On letters and strings, only the auto-increment shift one up in the alphabet, with the added ability to roll-over. Operators that come in post- and pre- varieties can be used two ways. The first way returns the value of the variable before it was altered, and the second way returns the value of the variable after it was altered.

Assignment [ edit | edit source ]

The basic assignment operator is = that sets the value on the left side to be equal to the value on the right side. It also returns the value. Thus you can do things like $a = 5 + ($b = 6) , which will set $b to a value of 6 and $a to a value of 11 (5 + 6). Why you would want to do this is another question.

The assignment update operators from C, += , -= , etc. work in perl. Perl expands on this basic idea to encompass most of the binary operators in perl.

Comparison [ edit | edit source ]

Perl uses different operators to compare numbers and strings. This is done, because in most cases, Perl will happily stringify numbers and numify strings. In most cases this helps, and is consistent with Perl's DWIM Do-What-I-Mean theme. Unfortunately, one place this often does not help, is comparison.

Logical [ edit | edit source ]

Perl has two sets of logical operators, just like the comparison operators, however not for the same reason.

The first set (sometimes referred to as the C-style logical operators, because they are borrowed from C) is && , || , and ! . They mean logical AND, OR, and NOT respectively. The second set is and , or , and not .

The only difference between these two sets is the precedence they take (See Precedence ). The symbolic operators take a much higher precedence than the textual.

Conditionals [ edit | edit source ]

Most of the time, you will be using logical operators in conditionals.

In this case, you could safely substitute and for && and the conditional would still work as expected. However, this is not always the case.

This, however, is completely different.

Most people prefer to use C-style logical operators and use brackets to enforce clarity rather than using a combination of textual and C-style operators (when possible), which can be very confusing at times.

Partial evaluation [ edit | edit source ]

Partial evaluation (or "short circuiting") is the property of logical operators that the second expression is only evaluated, if it needs to be.

This also works with logical OR statements. If the first expression evaluates as true, the second is never evaluated, because the conditional is automatically true.

This becomes useful in a case like this:

Here, if the foo() subroutine returns false, "foo() failed\n" is printed. However, if it returns true, "foo() failed\n" is not printed, because the second expression ( print "foo() failed\n" ) does not need to be evaluated.

Bitwise [ edit | edit source ]

These operators perform the same operation as the logical operators, but instead of being performed on the true/false value of the entire expressions, it is done on the individual respective bits of their values.

• & (bitwise AND)
• | (bitwise OR)
• ^ (bitwise XOR)
• ~ (bitwise NOT)

The left and right shift operators move the bits of the left operand (e.g. $a in the case of $a << $b) left or right a number of times equal to the right operand ($b). Each move to the right or left effectively halves or doubles the number, except where bits are shifted off the left or right sides. For example, $number << 3 returns $number multiplied by 8 (2**3).

• << (left shift)
• >> (right shift)

String [ edit | edit source ]

The string concatenation operator is . , not + that some other languages use.

There is a repeat operator for strings ( x ) that repeats a string a given number of times.

Comparing strings [ edit | edit source ]

To compare strings, use eq and ne instead of == or != respectively. You can also look for a substring with substr() , or pattern-match with regular expressions.

File Test [ edit | edit source ]

Other [ edit | edit source ].

The range operator (..) returns a list of items in the range between two items; the items can be characters or numbers. The type of character is determined by the first operand; the code:

Outputs (Newlines added for readability):

Note that the case is defined by the first operand, and that the 1..'a' and (10..-10) operations return empty list.

Precedence [ edit | edit source ]

Precedence is a concept that will be familiar to anyone who has studied algebra or coded in C/C++. Each operator has its place in a hierarchy of operators, and are executed in order. The precedence of perl operators is strict and should be overridden with parentheses, both when you are knowingly going against precedence and when you aren't sure of the order of precedence. For a complete listing of the order, check perlop .

The smart match operator [ edit | edit source ]

The smart match operator ~~ is new in perl 5.10. To use it, you'll need to explicitly say that you're writing code for perl 5.10 or newer. Its opposite operator ǃ~ matches smartly an inequality:

The smart match operator is versatile and fast (often faster than the equivalent comparison without ǃ~ or ~~ ). See smart matching in detail for the comparisons it can do. ~~ is also used in the given/when switch statement new in 5.10, which will be covered elsewhere.

Dereferencing [ edit | edit source ]

The doubledollar [ edit | edit source ].

A variable, previously referenced with the reference operator can be dereferenced by using a doubledollar symbol prefix:

The arrow operator [ edit | edit source ]

If the left hand operand of the arrow operator is an array or hash reference, or a subroutine that produces one, the arrow operator produces a look up of the element or hash:

• Book:Perl Programming

Navigation menu

An operator is the element affecting operands in a Perl expression and causes Perl to execute an operation on one of more operands. In the expression $a + 5 , $a and 5 are the operands and + is the operation causing the addition operation.

Perl programming can be accomplished by directly executing Perl commands at the shell prompt or by storing them in a text file with the .pl extension, and then executing it as a Perl script via perl file.pl .

Perl supports many operator types. Following is a list of frequently used operators.

Arithmetic Operators

Manipulate numeric scalar values.

• + Addition - Adds the operand values from either side of the operator
• - Subtraction - Subtracts the right operand from the left operand
• - Negation - When taking a single operand (unary), it calculates the negative value
• * Multiplication - Multiplies the operand values from either side of the operator
• / Division - Divides the left operand by the right operand
• % Modulus - Divides the left operand by the right operand and returns remainder
• ** Exponent - Calculates the left operand to the power of the right operand

Comparison Operators

Used to compare two scalar string or scalar numeric values. Comparison or relational operators are discussed in the Conditional Decisions section of this tutorial. Please review them in that section.

Assignment Operators

Used to assign scalar or array data to a data structure.

• = Simple assignment - assigns values from right side operands and operators to left side operand
• += Addition and assign - add right operand to left operand and assign to left operand
• -= Substract and assign - substract right operand from left operand and assign to left operand
• *= Multiply and assign - multiply right operand by left operand and assign to left operand
• /= Divide and assign - divide left operand by right operand and assign to left operand
• %= Modulus and assign - divide left operand by right operand and assign remainder to left operand
• **= Exponent and assign - calculates the left operand to the power of the right operand and assign to left operand
• ++ Autoincrement - increases unary operand value by one. E.g. $x++ or ++$x gives 11
• -- Autodecrement - decreases unary operand value by one. E.g. $x-- or --$x gives 9

Note that $x++ is considered post-autoincrement , and ++$x is considered pre-autoincrement :

• $a = $x++ will assign $a with 10 and $x with 11 (autoincrement $x after assigning value to $a )
• $a = ++$x will assign $x with 11 then assign $a with 11 (autoincrement $x before assigning value to $a )

Similarly with -- (autodecrement):

• $a = $x-- will assign $a with 10 and $x with 0 (autodecrement $x after assigning value to $a )
• $a = --$x will assign $x with 9 then assign $a with 9 (autodecrement $x before assigning value to $a )

Bitwise Operators

Manipulate numeric scalar values at the bit level.

Bitwise operators treat numeric operands as binary numbers and perform bit by bit operations. Scalars can be assigned with decimal, binary (with prefix 0b ) or hexadecimal (with prefix 0x ).

• & AND - bitwise AND of the operand values from either side of the operator e.g. $b & $mask gives 0b1001
• | OR - bitwise OR of the operand values from either side of the operator e.g. $b | $mask gives 0b1111
• ^ XOR - bitwise XOR of the operand values from either side of the operator e.g. $b & $mask gives 0b1001
• ~ NOT - bitwise INVERT (unary operator) inverts each bit of the left operand e.g. ~$b give 0b10100110
• << SHIFT LEFT - bitwise SHIFT LEFT the left operand, right operand times e.g. $b << 1 give 0b101001100
• >> SHIFT RIGHT - bitwise SHIFT RIGHT the left operand, right operand times e.g. $b >> 1 give 0b01010011

Logical Operators

Evaluate logical relations between operands.

Logical operators calculate a logical value - TRUE or FALSE, per the values of their operands.

• and Logical AND operator - return TRUE if both the operands are true, otherwise FALSE
• && Logical AND operator - return TRUE if both the operands are true, otherwise FALSE
• or Logical OR operator - return TRUE if either one of the operands is true, otherwise FALSE
• || Logical OR operator - return TRUE if either one of the operands is true, otherwise FALSE
• xor Logical XOR operator - return TRUE if one of the operands is true and the other is false, otherwise FALSE
• not Logical NOT operator (unary operator)- return TRUE if the operand is false, otherwise FALSE
• ! Logical NOT operator (unary operator)- return TRUE if the operand is false, otherwise FALSE

String Operators

Manipulate string scalar values.

• . String concatenation operator - concatenate the left and right operands e.g. $a . $b gives "world hello"
• x String repetition operator - return the left operand repeated the number of times specified by the right operator. E.g. $b x 3 gives "hellohellohello"

Miscellaneous Operators

• .. The range operator - returns an array of values reflecting the sequential range beteen the two operands. For numeric operands, the values are incremented by 1 from the left operand to the right operand. For letters (lowercase or uppercase), the values are incremented in alphabetical order.

Follow these instructions and print the result after each step.

• Assign scalar $a to a starting value of 5. Print value of $a .
• Add 6 to the previous result. Print the new result.
• Multiply the previous result by 2. Print the new result.
• Autoincrement the previous result. Print the new result.
• Substract 9 from the previous result. Print the new result.
• Divide the previous result by 7. Print the new result.

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Assignment Operators

Get introduced to the functionality of the assignment and the combined assignment operator in this lesson.

Basic assignment

• Explanation
• Combined assignment
• Difference between = and == operator

Perl allows you to do the basic arithmetic assignment by using the = operator.

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Perl Tutorial

• Introduction to Perl
• Installation and Environment Setup
• Syntax of a Perl Program
• Hello World Program in Perl
• Perl vs C/C++
• Perl vs Java
• Perl vs Python

Fundamentals

• Modes of Writing a Perl Code
• Boolean Values
• Variables and its Types
• Scope of Variables
• Modules in Perl
• Packages in Perl
• Number and its Types
• Directories with CRUD operations

Input and Output

• Use of print() and say() in Perl
• Perl | print operator
• Use of STDIN for Input

Control Flow

• Decision Making
• Perl given-when Statement
• Perl goto operator
• next operator
• redo operator
• last in loop

Arrays and Lists

• Array Slices
• Getting the Number of Elements of an Array
• Reverse an array
• Sorting of Arrays
• Useful Array functions
• Arrays (push, pop, shift, unshift)
• Implementing a Stack
• List and its Types
• List Functions
• Introduction to Hash
• Working of a Hash
• Hash Operations
• Sorting a Hash
• Multidimensional Hashes
• Hash in Scalar and List Context
• Useful Hash functions
• Comparing Scalars
• scalar keyword
• Quoted, Interpolated and Escaped Strings
• Multi-line Strings | Here Document
• Sorting mixed Strings in Perl
• String Operators
• Useful String Operators
• String functions (length, lc, uc, index, rindex)
• Useful String functions
• Automatic String to Number Conversion or Casting
• Count the frequency of words in text
• Removing leading and trailing white spaces (trim)

Object Oriented Programming in Perl

• Introduction to OOPs
• Constructors and Destructors
• Method Overriding
• Inheritance
• Polymorphism
• Encapsulation

Subroutines

• Subroutines or Functions
• Function Signature in Perl
• Passing Complex Parameters to a Subroutine
• Mutable and Immutable parameters
• Multiple Subroutines
• Use of return() Function
• Pass By Reference
• Recursion in Perl
• Regular Expressions
• Operators in Regular Expression
• Regex Character Classes
• Special Character Classes in Regular Expressions
• Quantifiers in Regular Expression
• Backtracking in Regular Expression
• ‘e’ modifier in Regex
• ‘ee’ Modifier in Regex
• pos() function in Regex
• Regex Cheat Sheet
• Searching in a File using regex

File Handling

• File Handling Introduction
• Opening and Reading a File
• Writing to a File
• Appending to a File
• Reading a CSV File
• File Test Operators
• File Locking
• Use of Slurp Module
• Useful File-handling functions

Context Sensitivity

• Scalar Context Sensitivity
• List Context Sensitivity
• STDIN in Scalar and List Context
• CGI Programming
• File Upload in CGI
• GET vs POST in CGI
• Breakpoints of a Debugger
• Exiting from a Script
• Creating Excel Files
• Reading Excel Files
• Number Guessing Game using Perl
• Database management using DBI
• Accessing a Directory using File Globbing
• Use of Hash bang or Shebang line
• Useful Math functions

Operators in Perl

Perl offers a rich set of operators for various operations, including arithmetic, comparison, logical operations, and more. This tutorial will walk you through the major operators in Perl and how to use them.

1. Arithmetic Operators

These are used for mathematical operations:

• + : Addition
• - : Subtraction
• * : Multiplication
• / : Division
• % : Modulus (remainder after division)
• ** : Exponentiation

2. Comparison Operators

Used for numeric comparison:

• == : Equal to
• != : Not equal to
• < : Less than
• > : Greater than
• <= : Less than or equal to
• >= : Greater than or equal to

For string comparison:

• eq : Equal to
• ne : Not equal to
• lt : Less than
• gt : Greater than
• le : Less than or equal to
• ge : Greater than or equal to

3. Logical Operators

• && : Logical AND
• || : Logical OR
• ! : Logical NOT
• and : Low precedence logical AND
• or : Low precedence logical OR
• not : Low precedence logical NOT

4. Assignment Operators

• += : Add and assign
• -= : Subtract and assign
• *= : Multiply and assign
• /= : Divide and assign
• %= : Modulus and assign

5. Bitwise Operators

• & : Bitwise AND
• | : Bitwise OR
• ^ : Bitwise XOR
• ~ : Bitwise NOT
• << : Left shift
• >> : Right shift

6. String Operators

• . : Concatenate strings
• x : Repeat string

7. Range Operator

• .. : Creates a range of values.

8. Conditional Operator

• ? : : Ternary conditional operator

9. File Test Operators

These are unary operators that test attributes of a file:

• -e : File exists
• -z : File is empty
• -s : File size (returns size or undef if doesn't exist)
• -r : File is readable
• -w : File is writable
• -x : File is executable
• -f : Regular file (not a directory or device file)
• -d : Directory ... and many more.

10. Special Operators

• .. : Flip-flop operator in scalar context.
• <> : Diamond operator to read from file or standard input.

Perl's operator set is diverse and flexible, providing tools for a variety of operations, from basic arithmetic to file tests. Familiarity with these operators is key to writing efficient and readable Perl code.

Arithmetic operators in Perl:

• Description: Arithmetic operators perform mathematical operations on numbers.
• Example Code: my $sum = 5 + 3; # Addition my $difference = 7 - 2; # Subtraction my $product = 4 * 6; # Multiplication my $quotient = 10 / 2; # Division my $remainder = 17 % 4; # Modulus

Comparison operators in Perl:

• Description: Comparison operators compare values and return a Boolean result.
• Example Code: my $result1 = (10 == 5); # Equal to my $result2 = (7 != 3); # Not equal to my $result3 = (8 > 6); # Greater than my $result4 = (4 < 9); # Less than my $result5 = (12 >= 10); # Greater than or equal to my $result6 = (2 <= 5); # Less than or equal to

Logical operators in Perl:

• Description: Logical operators perform Boolean operations on values.
• Example Code: my $and_result = ($condition1 && $condition2); # Logical AND my $or_result = ($condition1 || $condition2); # Logical OR my $not_result = !($condition); # Logical NOT

Bitwise operators in Perl:

• Description: Bitwise operators perform operations at the bit level.
• Example Code: my $bitwise_and = $num1 & $num2; # Bitwise AND my $bitwise_or = $num1 | $num2; # Bitwise OR my $bitwise_xor = $num1 ^ $num2; # Bitwise XOR my $bitwise_not = ~$num; # Bitwise NOT

String operators in Perl:

• Description: String operators perform operations on strings.
• Example Code: my $concatenation = $str1 . $str2; # String concatenation my $repetition = $str x 3; # String repetition

Assignment operators in Perl:

• Description: Assignment operators assign values to variables.
• Example Code: my $num = 10; $num += 5; # Addition assignment (equivalent to $num = $num + 5) $num -= 3; # Subtraction assignment $num *= 2; # Multiplication assignment $num /= 4; # Division assignment

Ternary operator in Perl:

• Description: The ternary operator provides a concise way to write conditional expressions.
• Example Code: my $result = ($condition) ? "True" : "False";

Precedence of operators in Perl:

• Description: Operators in Perl have a specific precedence, determining the order of evaluation.
• Example Code: my $result = 2 + 3 * 4; # Precedence: Multiplication has higher precedence than addition

Overloading operators in Perl:

• Description: Perl allows overloading certain operators for custom classes.
• Example Code: package MyNumber; use overload '+' => \&add_numbers; sub new { my ($class, $value) = @_; return bless { value => $value }, $class; } sub add_numbers { my ($self, $other, $swap) = @_; return $swap ? $other + $self->{value} : $self->{value} + $other; } my $num1 = MyNumber->new(5); my $num2 = MyNumber->new(3); my $result = $num1 + $num2;

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Perl Operator: A Comprehensive Overview

Discover this blog to explore an in-depth analysis of Perl Operator. This blog will also cover different types, including arithmetic, string, logical, and bitwise operators, explaining their syntax and usage. This blog also emphasises their role in controlling program flow and manipulating data, highlighting best practices for efficient coding in Perl.

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Perl is a versatile scripting language that offers a rich set of operators and essential tools for programmers to manipulate data and control program flow. Perl Operators are categorised into various types, such as arithmetic for mathematical operations, string operators for text manipulation, logical operators for decision-making, and more. Each type is unique, allowing for addition, concatenation, comparison, and condition evaluation.   

Understanding these operators is crucial for effective Perl programming, as they are fundamental in constructing expressions and enabling complex functionalities. Do you want to learn more about these Operators? Read this blog to learn more about Perl Operators and explore these powerful Operators and how they are used. 

Table of Contents 

1) What is Perl Operator? 

2) Arithmetic Operators 

3) Equality Operators 

4) Assignment Operators 

5) Bitwise Operators 

6) Logical Operators 

7) Conclusion 

What is a Perl Operator? 

Understanding Perl Operators is essential for any programmer working with the language. They allow for executing complex operations and control structures, rendering Perl an effective tool for various applications, from web development to system administration.   

In Perl, an Operator is a key element for executing specific operations on operands, which can be values or variables. These Operators are integral to forming expressions in Perl, enabling data manipulation and dictating program logic flow. The richness and variety of operators in Perl make it a versatile language suitable for various programming tasks.   

Operators in Perl are categorised into several types, each with its unique role. Arithmetic Operators, for instance, are used for basic mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 

These are fundamental for any calculations within the program. String operators, on the other hand, are designed specifically for string manipulation, allowing for operations like concatenation, repetition, and string comparison. 

Arithmetic Operators 

Arithmetic operators, including Perl, are fundamental in any programming language as they allow for basic mathematical operations within the code. These operators enable the manipulation of numerical values, forming the backbone of many computational tasks. In Perl, arithmetic operators are intuitive and follow conventional mathematical notation, making them accessible to both beginners and experienced programmers.   

a)  Addition (+): The most basic arithmetic operator is addition, represented by the plus sign (+). It is used to add two or more numbers. For example, ‘$sum = $a + $b’; will add the values of ‘$a’ and ‘$b’ and store the result in ‘$sum’. 

my $a = 5; 

my $b = 3; 

my $sum = $a + $b;  

# $sum is 8 

b) Subtraction (-): The subtraction operator, denoted by a minus sign (-), subtracts one number from another. For instance, ‘$difference = $a - $b’; will subtract ‘$b’ from ‘$a’ 

my $a = 10; 

my $b = 4; 

my $difference = $a - $b;  

# $difference is 6 

c) Multiplication (*): Represented by an asterisk (*), the multiplication operator is used to multiply two numbers. ‘$product = $a * $b’; multiplies ‘$a’ and ‘$b’. 

my $a = 7; 

my $b = 6; 

my $product = $a * $b; 

# $product is 42 

d) Division (/): The division operator, symbolised by a forward slash (/), divides one number by another. ‘$quotient = $a / $b’; will divide ‘$a’ by ‘$b’. 

my $a = 20; 

my $b = 5; 

my $quotient = $a / $b;  

# $quotient is 4 

e) Modulus (%): The modulus operator, represented by a percent sign (%), is used to find the remainder of a division operation. ‘$remainder = $a % $b’; will give the remainder when ‘$a’ is divided by ‘$b’. 

my $remainder = $a % $b;  

# $remainder is 1 

f) Exponentiation (): Perl also supports exponentiation (raising a number to the power of another number) using the double asterisk operator (). ‘$power = $a ** $b’; will raise ‘$a’ to the power of ‘$b’. 

my $a = 2; 

my $power = $a ** $b;  

# $power is 8 

g) Auto-increment (++) and Auto-decrement (--): Perl provides two very useful arithmetic operators: auto-increment (++) and auto-decrement (--). The auto-increment operator increases a number's value by one, while the auto-decrement operator decreases it by one. These operators can be used both as pre- and post-operators. 

my $value = 5; 

$value++; # $value is now 6 

$value--; # $value is back to 5 

h) Assignment with Arithmetic Operators: Perl combines assignment with arithmetic operators, enabling shorthand operations. For example, $a += $b; is equivalent to $a = $a + $b;. 

$a += 5; # $a is now 15 

$a *= 2; # $a is now 30 

Equality Operators 

In Perl, Equality Operators are essential for comparing values, a fundamental aspect of programming that allows for decision-making based on conditions. These operators test for equality or inequality, yielding Boolean values (true or false). Understanding equality operators is crucial for controlling program flow through conditional statements like ‘if’, ‘unless’, ‘while’, and others. 

Types of Equality Operators in Perl: 

Perl distinguishes between two types of equality comparisons: numeric and string. This distinction is crucial because Perl is a context-sensitive language, meaning it treats the same data differently based on the context. 

a) Numeric Equality Operators 

1) Equal (==): This operator checks if two numbers are equal. If they are, it returns true; otherwise, it returns false. 

if ($a == $b) { 

    print "a and b are equal"; 

2) Not equal (!=): It tests whether two numbers are not equal. If they are different, it returns true. 

if ($a != $b) { 

    print "a and b are not equal"; 

b) String Equality Operators 

1.    Equal (eq): This operator checks whether two strings are identical. It's essential to use eq instead of == when comparing strings. 

if ($string1 eq $string2) { 

    print "The strings are equal"; 

2.    Not equal (ne): It checks if two strings are different. 

if ($string1 ne $string2) { 

    print "The strings are not equal"; 

Assignment Operators 

Assignment operators in programming languages like Perl are fundamental components that simplify assigning values to variables. They are not just limited to the basic assignment but also include a range of compound assignment operators that combine arithmetic, string, and other operations with the assignment. Understanding these operators is crucial for writing concise and efficient code. 

a)  Basic Assignment Operator 

1) Equals (=): The most basic assignment operator is the equals sign (=). It assigns the value on its right to the variable on its left.  

my $a = 5;  # Assigns 5 to $a 

b) Compound Assignment Operators: 

Perl enhances the functionality of the basic assignment operator with compound assignment operators, which combine an operation with the assignment.   

1)  Addition Assignment (+=): Adds the right operand to the left operand and assigns the result to the left operand. 

 $a += 3;  # Equivalent to $a = $a + 3 

2) Subtraction Assignment (-=): Subtracts the right operand from the left operand and assigns the result to the left operand. 

 $a -= 2;  # Equivalent to $a = $a - 2 

3) Multiplication Assignment (*=): Multiplies the left operand by the right operand and assigns the result to the left operand. 

 $a *= 4;  # Equivalent to $a = $a * 4 

4) Division Assignment (/=): Divides the left operand by the right operand and assigns the result to the left operand. 

 $a /= 2;  # Equivalent to $a = $a / 2 

5) Modulus Assignment (%=): Applies modulus operation and assigns the result to the left operand. 

 $a %= 3;  # Equivalent to $a = $a % 3 

6) Exponentiation Assignment (**=): Raises the left operand to the power of the right operand and assigns the result back. 

 $a **= 2;  # Equivalent to $a = $a ** 2 

7) String Concatenation Assignment (.=): Appends the right string operand to the left string operand.  

my $str = "Hello"; 

$str .= " World";  # $str now is "Hello World" 

8) Bitwise AND Assignment (&=), Bitwise OR Assignment (|=), and Bitwise XOR Assignment (^=): These perform the corresponding bitwise operation and assign the result to the left operand. 

$a &= $b;  # Bitwise AND 

$a |= $b;  # Bitwise OR 

$a ^= $b;  # Bitwise XOR 

Bitwise Operators 

Bitwise Operators are a category of operators in programming languages, such as Perl, that perform operations at the bit level on numeric values. These operators treat their operands as sequences of 32 or 64 bits (depending on the platform) and operate on them bit by bit.  

Understanding bitwise operators is essential for tasks involving low-level data manipulation, such as working with binary data, flags, and masks.  

Types of Bitwise Operators: 

1) AND (&): The bitwise AND operator compares each bit of its first operand to the corresponding bit of its second operand. If both bits are 1, it sets the bit in the result to 1; otherwise, it is 0. 

 $result = $a & $b;  # Bitwise AND of $a and $b 

2) OR (|): This operator compares each bit of its first operand to the corresponding bit of its second operand. If either bit is 1, it sets the result bit to 1. 

 $result = $a | $b;  # Bitwise OR of $a and $b 

3) XOR (^): The bitwise XOR (exclusive OR) operator compares each bit of its first operand to the corresponding bit of its second operand. If the bits are different, it sets the result bit to 1. 

 $result = $a ^ $b;  # Bitwise XOR of $a and $b 

4) NOT (~): The bitwise NOT operator inverts all the bits of its operand. 

 $result = ~$a;  # Bitwise NOT of $a 

5) Left Shift ( This operator shifts all bits of its first operand to the left by the number of places specified in the second operand. New bits on the right are filled with zeros. 

 $result = $a << $shift;  # Left shift $a by $shift bits 

6) Right Shift (>>): It shifts all bits of its first operand to the right. The behaviour for the leftmost bits depends on the number type and whether it's signed or unsigned. 

 $result = $a >> $shift;  # Right shift $a by $shift bits 

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Logical Operators 

Logical operators in Perl are crucial for constructing logical expressions, which are fundamental to controlling program flow through conditional statements like ‘if’, ‘while’, and ‘unless’. These operators evaluate expressions and return Boolean values (true or false) based on the logic they implement. The primary logical operators in Perl are ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’, ‘&&’, ‘||’, and ‘!’.   

Types of Logical Operators: 

1) AND (&& and ‘and’): This operator returns true if both operands are true. The difference between ‘&’ and ‘and’ is their precedence, with && having a higher precedence. 

 if ($a && $b) { 

    # Executes if both $a and $b are true 

2) OR (|| and or): The OR operator returns true if either of its operands is true. Similar to AND, ‘||’ has a higher precedence than ‘or’.  

if ($a || $b) { 

    # Executes if either $a or $b is true 

3) NOT (! and not): NOT is a unary operator that inverts the truth value of its operand. ! has a higher precedence than not. 

 if (!$a) { 

    # Executes if $a is not true (i.e., false) 

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Conclusion 

Perl Operators are fundamental tools that greatly enhance the language's power and flexibility. They enable efficient data manipulation, logical decision-making, and control over program flow. Mastering these operators, from arithmetic to logical, is crucial for effective Perl scripting, allowing for concise and powerful code in various applications. 

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Frequently Asked Questions

The most commonly used Perl operators are:  

a) Arithmetic Operators (+, -, *, /, %) for basic mathematical operations. 

b) String Operators (. for concatenation, x for repetition) for string manipulation. 

c) Logical Operators (&&, ||, !) for evaluating Boolean expressions and controlling program flow.   

Perl uses different operators for numeric and string comparison. For numeric comparison, it uses ‘==’ (equal), ‘!=’ (not equal), ‘ ’ (greater than), etc. For string comparison, it uses ‘eq’ (equal), ‘ne’ (not equal), ‘lt’ (less than), ‘gt’ (greater than), etc. This distinction ensures accurate comparisons based on the data type. 

Yes, Perl operators can be combined to form complex expressions. For instance, arithmetic operators can be used with assignment operators (like +=, *=) for compound assignments. Logical operators can be used to combine multiple conditions in control structures. However, it's important to remember operator precedence and use parentheses for clarity when needed. 

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The Knowledge Academy’s Knowledge Pass , a prepaid voucher, adds another layer of flexibility, allowing course bookings over a 12-month period. Join us on a journey where education knows no bounds.   

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Perl Assignment Operators

Assume variable $a holds 10 and variable $b holds 20, then below are the assignment operators available in Perl and their usage −

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Perl - Assignment Operator

Learn Perl Assignment operator with code examples.

This tutorial explains about Perl assignment Operators

Perl assignments operators

Assignment operators perform expression and assign the result to a variable.

• Simple assignment
• Assignment Addition
• Assignment Subtraction
• Assignment Multiplication
• Assignment Division
• Assignment Modulus
• Assignment Exponent

Perl Assignment Operator

For example, We have operand1(op1)=6 and operand2(op2) =2 values.

Here is a Perl Assignment Operator Example

What Assignment operators are used in Perl scripts?

Arithmetic operators with assignments in Perl allow you to do arithmetic calculations on operands, and assign the result to a left operand. Addition(+=),Multiplication(*=),Subtraction(-=), Division(/=), Modulus(%=), Exponent(power (**=)) operators exists for this.

What are Assignment operators in Perl

there are 6 operators in Per for Assignment operators. Addition(+=),Multiplication(*=),Subtraction(-=), Division(/=), Modulus(%=), Exponent(power (**=)) operators exists for this.

How To Use Perl Operators Effectively

Perl operators are pivotal for developers, enabling precise data manipulation and logical decisions. This article delves into the nuances of these operators, from basic arithmetic to intricate bitwise functions, providing clarity and practical application for every coder.

Perl operators are the building blocks you'll use frequently in your coding projects. They help you perform various tasks like arithmetic calculations, string concatenation, and logical comparisons. Understanding them well can make your code more efficient and readable.

What Is An Operator

Arithmetic operators, comparison operators, logical operators, string operators, bitwise operators, assignment operators, special operators, operator precedence, practical examples, frequently asked questions.

In programming, an operator is a symbol that performs a specific operation on one or more operands. Operators are the building blocks of any program, allowing you to manipulate data and variables in various ways.

Code operators can be as simple as addition ( + ) or as complex as bitwise shifting ( >> ). They are essential for carrying out tasks ranging from mathematical calculations to logical comparisons and beyond.

Syntax And Examples

The general syntax for using an operator usually involves placing it between two operands. For example, in the expression a + b , + is the operator, and a and b are the operands.

Operators can also be unary , meaning they operate on a single operand. For instance, the negation operator - can turn a positive number into a negative one.

Understanding how to use operators effectively is crucial for writing clean, efficient code. They are the tools you'll use to interact with and manipulate your data, so getting to know them well is time well spent.

Basic Arithmetic Operators

Advanced arithmetic operators, increment and decrement.

In Perl, arithmetic operators are used for performing mathematical calculations. The most basic ones are addition ( + ), subtraction ( - ), multiplication ( * ), and division ( / ).

For more advanced calculations, Perl offers modulus ( % ) and exponentiation ( ** ) operators.

Perl also provides increment ( ++ ) and decrement ( -- ) operators to easily increase or decrease a variable's value by 1.

Understanding and using arithmetic operators effectively can simplify your code and make it easier to read. They are fundamental tools for any kind of numerical manipulation in Perl.

Basic Comparison Operators

String comparison operators, combined comparisons.

In Perl, comparison operators are essential for making decisions in your code. The basic ones include equality ( == ), inequality ( != ), greater than ( > ), less than ( < ), greater than or equal to ( >= ), and less than or equal to ( <= ).

Perl also has string comparison operators like eq for equality, ne for inequality, gt for greater than, lt for less than, ge for greater than or equal to, and le for less than or equal to.

You can combine multiple comparisons using logical operators like && (and), || (or), and ! (not).

Utilizing comparison operators effectively is crucial for controlling the flow of your program. They allow you to make decisions based on the evaluation of conditions, leading to more dynamic and responsive code.

Basic Logical Operators

Short-circuiting, ternary operator.

In Perl, logical operators are used to evaluate multiple conditions. The primary ones are && (AND), || (OR), and ! (NOT).

Perl's logical operators short-circuit , meaning they stop evaluating as soon as the outcome is determined.

Perl also offers a ternary operator for conditional assignments. It has the form condition ? true_expression : false_expression .

Understanding logical operators is key for effective decision-making in your code. They allow you to evaluate and combine multiple conditions, making your programs more dynamic and efficient.

Concatenation And Repetition

String comparison, interpolation and escaping.

In Perl, string operators are essential for text manipulation. The . operator is used for concatenation, and the x operator is used for repetition.

For comparing strings, Perl provides string comparison operators like eq , ne , lt , gt , le , and ge .

String interpolation allows you to insert variables directly into strings. To escape special characters, use the backslash \ .

String operators in Perl offer a wide range of possibilities for text manipulation. Whether you're building strings, comparing them, or embedding variables, understanding these operators is crucial for effective string handling.

Basic Bitwise Operators

Shift operations, bitwise not.

In Perl, bitwise operators work at the bit level of integers. The basic bitwise operators include AND ( & ), OR ( | ), XOR ( ^ ), NOT ( ~ ), left shift ( << ), and right shift ( >> ).

Bitwise shift operations move bits to the left or right within an integer.

The NOT operator ( ~ ) flips all the bits of its operand.

Understanding bitwise operators is essential when you need to manipulate individual bits or perform low-level operations. They offer a level of control that's often necessary in tasks like data compression, encryption, and networking.

Basic Assignment Operator

Compound assignment operators, string assignment operators, multiple assignments.

In Perl, the assignment operator ( = ) is used to assign a value to a variable. It's the most straightforward way to store data for later use.

Perl also offers compound assignment operators that perform an operation and assignment in one step. These include += , -= , *= , /= , %= , &= , |= , and ^= .

For string manipulation, Perl provides string-specific assignment operators like .= for concatenation.

You can also perform multiple assignments in a single line to make your code more concise.

Assignment operators are fundamental to programming in Perl. They allow you to store and manipulate data efficiently, making your code both readable and maintainable.

Range Operator

Flip-flop operator, conditional operator, quote-like operators.

In Perl, the range operator ( .. ) is used to generate a list of values between a start and end point. This is particularly useful in loops and list contexts.

The flip-flop operator ( .. ) also serves a dual role in scalar context, acting as a stateful line-range operator.

The conditional operator ( ?: ) is a shorthand for simple if-else statements. It's useful for quick evaluations.

Perl has quote-like operators such as q and qq for single and double-quoted strings, respectively.

Special operators in Perl offer unique functionalities that can make your code more efficient and expressive. They provide shortcuts and specialized behaviors that can be invaluable in specific scenarios.

Importance Of Operator Precedence

Common precedence levels, using parentheses, logical operator precedence.

In Perl, operator precedence determines the order in which operations are performed when an expression involves multiple operators. Understanding this concept is crucial for writing accurate and efficient code.

Some operators have higher precedence levels than others. For instance, arithmetic operators like * and / take precedence over + and - .

You can use parentheses to explicitly set the order of operations, overriding the default precedence rules.

Logical operators like && and || also have their own precedence rules . The && operator has higher precedence than || .

Understanding operator precedence is essential for avoiding bugs and ensuring that your code performs calculations in the intended order. It's a fundamental concept that every Perl programmer should grasp.

Calculating Area Of A Circle

String manipulation, bitwise operations for flags, conditional age check.

Let's start with a practical example that uses arithmetic operators to calculate the area of a circle.

Next, let's look at a string manipulation example that uses both concatenation and repetition operators.

Bitwise operators can be used for flag manipulations , a common task in systems programming.

Lastly, let's use the conditional operator to perform a quick age check.

These practical examples demonstrate how various types of operators can be effectively used in Perl for different tasks. Whether it's mathematical calculations, string manipulations, or conditional checks, operators are indispensable tools in your coding arsenal.

What Are Operator Precedence Rules?

To concatenate strings in Perl, you can use the . operator. For example, $full_name = $first_name . " " . $last_name; will concatenate the first and last names with a space in between.

What's the Difference Between == and eq in Perl?

In Perl, == is used for numerical comparison, while eq is used for string comparison. Using == for strings or eq for numbers will not produce the expected results.

What Are Special Operators in Perl?

Special operators in Perl include the range operator ( .. ), the flip-flop operator, and quote-like operators ( q and qq ). These operators offer unique functionalities for specific scenarios.

How Can I Override Operator Precedence?

You can use parentheses to explicitly set the order of operations, overriding the default precedence rules. For example, $result = (5 + 10) / 2; will first perform the addition and then the division.

Operator precedence determines the order in which operations are performed in an expression. For example, multiplication takes precedence over addition in the expression 2 + 3 * 4 .

Let’s test your knowledge!

Which operator is used for string concatenation in Perl?

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Perl - Bitwise OR and assignment operator

The Bitwise OR and assignment operator (|=) assigns the first operand a value equal to the result of Bitwise OR operation of two operands.

(x |= y) is equivalent to (x = x | y)

The Bitwise OR operator (|) is a binary operator which takes two bit patterns of equal length and performs the logical OR operation on each pair of corresponding bits. It returns 1 if either or both bits at the same position are 1, else returns 0.

The example below describes how bitwise OR operator works:

The code of using Bitwise OR operator (|) is given below:

The output of the above code will be:

Example: Find largest power of 2 less than or equal to given number

Consider an integer 1000. In the bit-wise format, it can be written as 1111101000. However, all bits are not written here. A complete representation will be 32 bit representation as given below:

Performing n |= (n>>i) operation, where i = 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 will change all right side bit to 1. When applied on 1000, the result in 32 bit representation is given below:

Adding one to this result and then right shifting the result by one place will give largest power of 2 less than or equal to 1000.

The below code will calculate the largest power of 2 less than or equal to given number.

The above code will give the following output:

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