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+=head1 NAME
+
+perldata - Perl data types
+
+=head1 DESCRIPTION
+
+=head2 Variable names
+X<variable, name> X<variable name> X<data type> X<type>
+
+Perl has three built-in data types: scalars, arrays of scalars, and
+associative arrays of scalars, known as "hashes". A scalar is a
+single string (of any size, limited only by the available memory),
+number, or a reference to something (which will be discussed
+in L<perlref>). Normal arrays are ordered lists of scalars indexed
+by number, starting with 0. Hashes are unordered collections of scalar
+values indexed by their associated string key.
+
+Values are usually referred to by name, or through a named reference.
+The first character of the name tells you to what sort of data
+structure it refers. The rest of the name tells you the particular
+value to which it refers. Usually this name is a single I<identifier>,
+that is, a string beginning with a letter or underscore, and
+containing letters, underscores, and digits. In some cases, it may
+be a chain of identifiers, separated by C<::> (or by the slightly
+archaic C<'>); all but the last are interpreted as names of packages,
+to locate the namespace in which to look up the final identifier
+(see L<perlmod/Packages> for details). It's possible to substitute
+for a simple identifier, an expression that produces a reference
+to the value at runtime. This is described in more detail below
+and in L<perlref>.
+X<identifier>
+
+Perl also has its own built-in variables whose names don't follow
+these rules. They have strange names so they don't accidentally
+collide with one of your normal variables. Strings that match
+parenthesized parts of a regular expression are saved under names
+containing only digits after the C<$> (see L<perlop> and L<perlre>).
+In addition, several special variables that provide windows into
+the inner working of Perl have names containing punctuation characters
+and control characters. These are documented in L<perlvar>.
+X<variable, built-in>
+
+Scalar values are always named with '$', even when referring to a
+scalar that is part of an array or a hash. The '$' symbol works
+semantically like the English word "the" in that it indicates a
+single value is expected.
+X<scalar>
+
+ $days # the simple scalar value "days"
+ $days[28] # the 29th element of array @days
+ $days{'Feb'} # the 'Feb' value from hash %days
+ $#days # the last index of array @days
+
+Entire arrays (and slices of arrays and hashes) are denoted by '@',
+which works much like the word "these" or "those" does in English,
+in that it indicates multiple values are expected.
+X<array>
+
+ @days # ($days[0], $days[1],... $days[n])
+ @days[3,4,5] # same as ($days[3],$days[4],$days[5])
+ @days{'a','c'} # same as ($days{'a'},$days{'c'})
+
+Entire hashes are denoted by '%':
+X<hash>
+
+ %days # (key1, val1, key2, val2 ...)
+
+In addition, subroutines are named with an initial '&', though this
+is optional when unambiguous, just as the word "do" is often redundant
+in English. Symbol table entries can be named with an initial '*',
+but you don't really care about that yet (if ever :-).
+
+Every variable type has its own namespace, as do several
+non-variable identifiers. This means that you can, without fear
+of conflict, use the same name for a scalar variable, an array, or
+a hash--or, for that matter, for a filehandle, a directory handle, a
+subroutine name, a format name, or a label. This means that $foo
+and @foo are two different variables. It also means that C<$foo[1]>
+is a part of @foo, not a part of $foo. This may seem a bit weird,
+but that's okay, because it is weird.
+X<namespace>
+
+Because variable references always start with '$', '@', or '%', the
+"reserved" words aren't in fact reserved with respect to variable
+names. They I<are> reserved with respect to labels and filehandles,
+however, which don't have an initial special character. You can't
+have a filehandle named "log", for instance. Hint: you could say
+C<open(LOG,'logfile')> rather than C<open(log,'logfile')>. Using
+uppercase filehandles also improves readability and protects you
+from conflict with future reserved words. Case I<is> significant--"FOO",
+"Foo", and "foo" are all different names. Names that start with a
+letter or underscore may also contain digits and underscores.
+X<identifier, case sensitivity>
+X<case>
+
+It is possible to replace such an alphanumeric name with an expression
+that returns a reference to the appropriate type. For a description
+of this, see L<perlref>.
+
+Names that start with a digit may contain only more digits. Names
+that do not start with a letter, underscore, digit or a caret (i.e.
+a control character) are limited to one character, e.g., C<$%> or
+C<$$>. (Most of these one character names have a predefined
+significance to Perl. For instance, C<$$> is the current process
+id.)
+
+=head2 Context
+X<context> X<scalar context> X<list context>
+
+The interpretation of operations and values in Perl sometimes depends
+on the requirements of the context around the operation or value.
+There are two major contexts: list and scalar. Certain operations
+return list values in contexts wanting a list, and scalar values
+otherwise. If this is true of an operation it will be mentioned in
+the documentation for that operation. In other words, Perl overloads
+certain operations based on whether the expected return value is
+singular or plural. Some words in English work this way, like "fish"
+and "sheep".
+
+In a reciprocal fashion, an operation provides either a scalar or a
+list context to each of its arguments. For example, if you say
+
+ int( <STDIN> )
+
+the integer operation provides scalar context for the <>
+operator, which responds by reading one line from STDIN and passing it
+back to the integer operation, which will then find the integer value
+of that line and return that. If, on the other hand, you say
+
+ sort( <STDIN> )
+
+then the sort operation provides list context for <>, which
+will proceed to read every line available up to the end of file, and
+pass that list of lines back to the sort routine, which will then
+sort those lines and return them as a list to whatever the context
+of the sort was.
+
+Assignment is a little bit special in that it uses its left argument
+to determine the context for the right argument. Assignment to a
+scalar evaluates the right-hand side in scalar context, while
+assignment to an array or hash evaluates the righthand side in list
+context. Assignment to a list (or slice, which is just a list
+anyway) also evaluates the righthand side in list context.
+
+When you use the C<use warnings> pragma or Perl's B<-w> command-line
+option, you may see warnings
+about useless uses of constants or functions in "void context".
+Void context just means the value has been discarded, such as a
+statement containing only C<"fred";> or C<getpwuid(0);>. It still
+counts as scalar context for functions that care whether or not
+they're being called in list context.
+
+User-defined subroutines may choose to care whether they are being
+called in a void, scalar, or list context. Most subroutines do not
+need to bother, though. That's because both scalars and lists are
+automatically interpolated into lists. See L<perlfunc/wantarray>
+for how you would dynamically discern your function's calling
+context.
+
+=head2 Scalar values
+X<scalar> X<number> X<string> X<reference>
+
+All data in Perl is a scalar, an array of scalars, or a hash of
+scalars. A scalar may contain one single value in any of three
+different flavors: a number, a string, or a reference. In general,
+conversion from one form to another is transparent. Although a
+scalar may not directly hold multiple values, it may contain a
+reference to an array or hash which in turn contains multiple values.
+
+Scalars aren't necessarily one thing or another. There's no place
+to declare a scalar variable to be of type "string", type "number",
+type "reference", or anything else. Because of the automatic
+conversion of scalars, operations that return scalars don't need
+to care (and in fact, cannot care) whether their caller is looking
+for a string, a number, or a reference. Perl is a contextually
+polymorphic language whose scalars can be strings, numbers, or
+references (which includes objects). Although strings and numbers
+are considered pretty much the same thing for nearly all purposes,
+references are strongly-typed, uncastable pointers with builtin
+reference-counting and destructor invocation.
+
+A scalar value is interpreted as TRUE in the Boolean sense if it is not
+the null string or the number 0 (or its string equivalent, "0"). The
+Boolean context is just a special kind of scalar context where no
+conversion to a string or a number is ever performed.
+X<boolean> X<bool> X<true> X<false> X<truth>
+
+There are actually two varieties of null strings (sometimes referred
+to as "empty" strings), a defined one and an undefined one. The
+defined version is just a string of length zero, such as C<"">.
+The undefined version is the value that indicates that there is
+no real value for something, such as when there was an error, or
+at end of file, or when you refer to an uninitialized variable or
+element of an array or hash. Although in early versions of Perl,
+an undefined scalar could become defined when first used in a
+place expecting a defined value, this no longer happens except for
+rare cases of autovivification as explained in L<perlref>. You can
+use the defined() operator to determine whether a scalar value is
+defined (this has no meaning on arrays or hashes), and the undef()
+operator to produce an undefined value.
+X<defined> X<undefined> X<undef> X<null> X<string, null>
+
+To find out whether a given string is a valid non-zero number, it's
+sometimes enough to test it against both numeric 0 and also lexical
+"0" (although this will cause noises if warnings are on). That's
+because strings that aren't numbers count as 0, just as they do in B<awk>:
+
+ if ($str == 0 && $str ne "0") {
+ warn "That doesn't look like a number";
+ }
+
+That method may be best because otherwise you won't treat IEEE
+notations like C<NaN> or C<Infinity> properly. At other times, you
+might prefer to determine whether string data can be used numerically
+by calling the POSIX::strtod() function or by inspecting your string
+with a regular expression (as documented in L<perlre>).
+
+ warn "has nondigits" if /\D/;
+ warn "not a natural number" unless /^\d+$/; # rejects -3
+ warn "not an integer" unless /^-?\d+$/; # rejects +3
+ warn "not an integer" unless /^[+-]?\d+$/;
+ warn "not a decimal number" unless /^-?\d+\.?\d*$/; # rejects .2
+ warn "not a decimal number" unless /^-?(?:\d+(?:\.\d*)?|\.\d+)$/;
+ warn "not a C float"
+ unless /^([+-]?)(?=\d|\.\d)\d*(\.\d*)?([Ee]([+-]?\d+))?$/;
+
+The length of an array is a scalar value. You may find the length
+of array @days by evaluating C<$#days>, as in B<csh>. However, this
+isn't the length of the array; it's the subscript of the last element,
+which is a different value since there is ordinarily a 0th element.
+Assigning to C<$#days> actually changes the length of the array.
+Shortening an array this way destroys intervening values. Lengthening
+an array that was previously shortened does not recover values
+that were in those elements. (It used to do so in Perl 4, but we
+had to break this to make sure destructors were called when expected.)
+X<$#> X<array, length>
+
+You can also gain some minuscule measure of efficiency by pre-extending
+an array that is going to get big. You can also extend an array
+by assigning to an element that is off the end of the array. You
+can truncate an array down to nothing by assigning the null list
+() to it. The following are equivalent:
+
+ @whatever = ();
+ $#whatever = -1;
+
+If you evaluate an array in scalar context, it returns the length
+of the array. (Note that this is not true of lists, which return
+the last value, like the C comma operator, nor of built-in functions,
+which return whatever they feel like returning.) The following is
+always true:
+X<array, length>
+
+ scalar(@whatever) == $#whatever - $[ + 1;
+
+Version 5 of Perl changed the semantics of C<$[>: files that don't set
+the value of C<$[> no longer need to worry about whether another
+file changed its value. (In other words, use of C<$[> is deprecated.)
+So in general you can assume that
+X<$[>
+
+ scalar(@whatever) == $#whatever + 1;
+
+Some programmers choose to use an explicit conversion so as to
+leave nothing to doubt:
+
+ $element_count = scalar(@whatever);
+
+If you evaluate a hash in scalar context, it returns false if the
+hash is empty. If there are any key/value pairs, it returns true;
+more precisely, the value returned is a string consisting of the
+number of used buckets and the number of allocated buckets, separated
+by a slash. This is pretty much useful only to find out whether
+Perl's internal hashing algorithm is performing poorly on your data
+set. For example, you stick 10,000 things in a hash, but evaluating
+%HASH in scalar context reveals C<"1/16">, which means only one out
+of sixteen buckets has been touched, and presumably contains all
+10,000 of your items. This isn't supposed to happen. If a tied hash
+is evaluated in scalar context, a fatal error will result, since this
+bucket usage information is currently not available for tied hashes.
+X<hash, scalar context> X<hash, bucket> X<bucket>
+
+You can preallocate space for a hash by assigning to the keys() function.
+This rounds up the allocated buckets to the next power of two:
+
+ keys(%users) = 1000; # allocate 1024 buckets
+
+=head2 Scalar value constructors
+X<scalar, literal> X<scalar, constant>
+
+Numeric literals are specified in any of the following floating point or
+integer formats:
+
+ 12345
+ 12345.67
+ .23E-10 # a very small number
+ 3.14_15_92 # a very important number
+ 4_294_967_296 # underscore for legibility
+ 0xff # hex
+ 0xdead_beef # more hex
+ 0377 # octal (only numbers, begins with 0)
+ 0b011011 # binary
+
+You are allowed to use underscores (underbars) in numeric literals
+between digits for legibility. You could, for example, group binary
+digits by threes (as for a Unix-style mode argument such as 0b110_100_100)
+or by fours (to represent nibbles, as in 0b1010_0110) or in other groups.
+X<number, literal>
+
+String literals are usually delimited by either single or double
+quotes. They work much like quotes in the standard Unix shells:
+double-quoted string literals are subject to backslash and variable
+substitution; single-quoted strings are not (except for C<\'> and
+C<\\>). The usual C-style backslash rules apply for making
+characters such as newline, tab, etc., as well as some more exotic
+forms. See L<perlop/"Quote and Quote-like Operators"> for a list.
+X<string, literal>
+
+Hexadecimal, octal, or binary, representations in string literals
+(e.g. '0xff') are not automatically converted to their integer
+representation. The hex() and oct() functions make these conversions
+for you. See L<perlfunc/hex> and L<perlfunc/oct> for more details.
+
+You can also embed newlines directly in your strings, i.e., they can end
+on a different line than they begin. This is nice, but if you forget
+your trailing quote, the error will not be reported until Perl finds
+another line containing the quote character, which may be much further
+on in the script. Variable substitution inside strings is limited to
+scalar variables, arrays, and array or hash slices. (In other words,
+names beginning with $ or @, followed by an optional bracketed
+expression as a subscript.) The following code segment prints out "The
+price is $Z<>100."
+X<interpolation>
+
+ $Price = '$100'; # not interpolated
+ print "The price is $Price.\n"; # interpolated
+
+There is no double interpolation in Perl, so the C<$100> is left as is.
+
+By default floating point numbers substituted inside strings use the
+dot (".") as the decimal separator. If C<use locale> is in effect,
+and POSIX::setlocale() has been called, the character used for the
+decimal separator is affected by the LC_NUMERIC locale.
+See L<perllocale> and L<POSIX>.
+
+As in some shells, you can enclose the variable name in braces to
+disambiguate it from following alphanumerics (and underscores).
+You must also do
+this when interpolating a variable into a string to separate the
+variable name from a following double-colon or an apostrophe, since
+these would be otherwise treated as a package separator:
+X<interpolation>
+
+ $who = "Larry";
+ print PASSWD "${who}::0:0:Superuser:/:/bin/perl\n";
+ print "We use ${who}speak when ${who}'s here.\n";
+
+Without the braces, Perl would have looked for a $whospeak, a
+C<$who::0>, and a C<$who's> variable. The last two would be the
+$0 and the $s variables in the (presumably) non-existent package
+C<who>.
+
+In fact, an identifier within such curlies is forced to be a string,
+as is any simple identifier within a hash subscript. Neither need
+quoting. Our earlier example, C<$days{'Feb'}> can be written as
+C<$days{Feb}> and the quotes will be assumed automatically. But
+anything more complicated in the subscript will be interpreted as an
+expression. This means for example that C<$version{2.0}++> is
+equivalent to C<$version{2}++>, not to C<$version{'2.0'}++>.
+
+=head3 Version Strings
+X<version string> X<vstring> X<v-string>
+
+B<Note:> Version Strings (v-strings) have been deprecated. They will
+be removed in some future release after Perl 5.8.1. The marginal
+benefits of v-strings were greatly outweighed by the potential for
+Surprise and Confusion.
+
+A literal of the form C<v1.20.300.4000> is parsed as a string composed
+of characters with the specified ordinals. This form, known as
+v-strings, provides an alternative, more readable way to construct
+strings, rather than use the somewhat less readable interpolation form
+C<"\x{1}\x{14}\x{12c}\x{fa0}">. This is useful for representing
+Unicode strings, and for comparing version "numbers" using the string
+comparison operators, C<cmp>, C<gt>, C<lt> etc. If there are two or
+more dots in the literal, the leading C<v> may be omitted.
+
+ print v9786; # prints SMILEY, "\x{263a}"
+ print v102.111.111; # prints "foo"
+ print 102.111.111; # same
+
+Such literals are accepted by both C<require> and C<use> for
+doing a version check. Note that using the v-strings for IPv4
+addresses is not portable unless you also use the
+inet_aton()/inet_ntoa() routines of the Socket package.
+
+Note that since Perl 5.8.1 the single-number v-strings (like C<v65>)
+are not v-strings before the C<< => >> operator (which is usually used
+to separate a hash key from a hash value), instead they are interpreted
+as literal strings ('v65'). They were v-strings from Perl 5.6.0 to
+Perl 5.8.0, but that caused more confusion and breakage than good.
+Multi-number v-strings like C<v65.66> and C<65.66.67> continue to
+be v-strings always.
+
+=head3 Special Literals
+X<special literal> X<__END__> X<__DATA__> X<END> X<DATA>
+X<end> X<data> X<^D> X<^Z>
+
+The special literals __FILE__, __LINE__, and __PACKAGE__
+represent the current filename, line number, and package name at that
+point in your program. They may be used only as separate tokens; they
+will not be interpolated into strings. If there is no current package
+(due to an empty C<package;> directive), __PACKAGE__ is the undefined
+value.
+X<__FILE__> X<__LINE__> X<__PACKAGE__> X<line> X<file> X<package>
+
+The two control characters ^D and ^Z, and the tokens __END__ and __DATA__
+may be used to indicate the logical end of the script before the actual
+end of file. Any following text is ignored.
+
+Text after __DATA__ may be read via the filehandle C<PACKNAME::DATA>,
+where C<PACKNAME> is the package that was current when the __DATA__
+token was encountered. The filehandle is left open pointing to the
+contents after __DATA__. It is the program's responsibility to
+C<close DATA> when it is done reading from it. For compatibility with
+older scripts written before __DATA__ was introduced, __END__ behaves
+like __DATA__ in the top level script (but not in files loaded with
+C<require> or C<do>) and leaves the remaining contents of the
+file accessible via C<main::DATA>.
+
+See L<SelfLoader> for more description of __DATA__, and
+an example of its use. Note that you cannot read from the DATA
+filehandle in a BEGIN block: the BEGIN block is executed as soon
+as it is seen (during compilation), at which point the corresponding
+__DATA__ (or __END__) token has not yet been seen.
+
+=head3 Barewords
+X<bareword>
+
+A word that has no other interpretation in the grammar will
+be treated as if it were a quoted string. These are known as
+"barewords". As with filehandles and labels, a bareword that consists
+entirely of lowercase letters risks conflict with future reserved
+words, and if you use the C<use warnings> pragma or the B<-w> switch,
+Perl will warn you about any such words. Perl limits barewords (like
+identifiers) to about 250 characters. Future versions of Perl are likely
+to eliminate these arbitrary limitations.
+
+Some people may wish to outlaw barewords entirely. If you
+say
+
+ use strict 'subs';
+
+then any bareword that would NOT be interpreted as a subroutine call
+produces a compile-time error instead. The restriction lasts to the
+end of the enclosing block. An inner block may countermand this
+by saying C<no strict 'subs'>.
+
+=head3 Array Joining Delimiter
+X<array, interpolation> X<interpolation, array> X<$">
+
+Arrays and slices are interpolated into double-quoted strings
+by joining the elements with the delimiter specified in the C<$">
+variable (C<$LIST_SEPARATOR> if "use English;" is specified),
+space by default. The following are equivalent:
+
+ $temp = join($", @ARGV);
+ system "echo $temp";
+
+ system "echo @ARGV";
+
+Within search patterns (which also undergo double-quotish substitution)
+there is an unfortunate ambiguity: Is C</$foo[bar]/> to be interpreted as
+C</${foo}[bar]/> (where C<[bar]> is a character class for the regular
+expression) or as C</${foo[bar]}/> (where C<[bar]> is the subscript to array
+@foo)? If @foo doesn't otherwise exist, then it's obviously a
+character class. If @foo exists, Perl takes a good guess about C<[bar]>,
+and is almost always right. If it does guess wrong, or if you're just
+plain paranoid, you can force the correct interpretation with curly
+braces as above.
+
+If you're looking for the information on how to use here-documents,
+which used to be here, that's been moved to
+L<perlop/Quote and Quote-like Operators>.
+
+=head2 List value constructors
+X<list>
+
+List values are denoted by separating individual values by commas
+(and enclosing the list in parentheses where precedence requires it):
+
+ (LIST)
+
+In a context not requiring a list value, the value of what appears
+to be a list literal is simply the value of the final element, as
+with the C comma operator. For example,
+
+ @foo = ('cc', '-E', $bar);
+
+assigns the entire list value to array @foo, but
+
+ $foo = ('cc', '-E', $bar);
+
+assigns the value of variable $bar to the scalar variable $foo.
+Note that the value of an actual array in scalar context is the
+length of the array; the following assigns the value 3 to $foo:
+
+ @foo = ('cc', '-E', $bar);
+ $foo = @foo; # $foo gets 3
+
+You may have an optional comma before the closing parenthesis of a
+list literal, so that you can say:
+
+ @foo = (
+ 1,
+ 2,
+ 3,
+ );
+
+To use a here-document to assign an array, one line per element,
+you might use an approach like this:
+
+ @sauces = <<End_Lines =~ m/(\S.*\S)/g;
+ normal tomato
+ spicy tomato
+ green chile
+ pesto
+ white wine
+ End_Lines
+
+LISTs do automatic interpolation of sublists. That is, when a LIST is
+evaluated, each element of the list is evaluated in list context, and
+the resulting list value is interpolated into LIST just as if each
+individual element were a member of LIST. Thus arrays and hashes lose their
+identity in a LIST--the list
+
+ (@foo,@bar,&SomeSub,%glarch)
+
+contains all the elements of @foo followed by all the elements of @bar,
+followed by all the elements returned by the subroutine named SomeSub
+called in list context, followed by the key/value pairs of %glarch.
+To make a list reference that does I<NOT> interpolate, see L<perlref>.
+
+The null list is represented by (). Interpolating it in a list
+has no effect. Thus ((),(),()) is equivalent to (). Similarly,
+interpolating an array with no elements is the same as if no
+array had been interpolated at that point.
+
+This interpolation combines with the facts that the opening
+and closing parentheses are optional (except when necessary for
+precedence) and lists may end with an optional comma to mean that
+multiple commas within lists are legal syntax. The list C<1,,3> is a
+concatenation of two lists, C<1,> and C<3>, the first of which ends
+with that optional comma. C<1,,3> is C<(1,),(3)> is C<1,3> (And
+similarly for C<1,,,3> is C<(1,),(,),3> is C<1,3> and so on.) Not that
+we'd advise you to use this obfuscation.
+
+A list value may also be subscripted like a normal array. You must
+put the list in parentheses to avoid ambiguity. For example:
+
+ # Stat returns list value.
+ $time = (stat($file))[8];
+
+ # SYNTAX ERROR HERE.
+ $time = stat($file)[8]; # OOPS, FORGOT PARENTHESES
+
+ # Find a hex digit.
+ $hexdigit = ('a','b','c','d','e','f')[$digit-10];
+
+ # A "reverse comma operator".
+ return (pop(@foo),pop(@foo))[0];
+
+Lists may be assigned to only when each element of the list
+is itself legal to assign to:
+
+ ($a, $b, $c) = (1, 2, 3);
+
+ ($map{'red'}, $map{'blue'}, $map{'green'}) = (0x00f, 0x0f0, 0xf00);
+
+An exception to this is that you may assign to C<undef> in a list.
+This is useful for throwing away some of the return values of a
+function:
+
+ ($dev, $ino, undef, undef, $uid, $gid) = stat($file);
+
+List assignment in scalar context returns the number of elements
+produced by the expression on the right side of the assignment:
+
+ $x = (($foo,$bar) = (3,2,1)); # set $x to 3, not 2
+ $x = (($foo,$bar) = f()); # set $x to f()'s return count
+
+This is handy when you want to do a list assignment in a Boolean
+context, because most list functions return a null list when finished,
+which when assigned produces a 0, which is interpreted as FALSE.
+
+It's also the source of a useful idiom for executing a function or
+performing an operation in list context and then counting the number of
+return values, by assigning to an empty list and then using that
+assignment in scalar context. For example, this code:
+
+ $count = () = $string =~ /\d+/g;
+
+will place into $count the number of digit groups found in $string.
+This happens because the pattern match is in list context (since it
+is being assigned to the empty list), and will therefore return a list
+of all matching parts of the string. The list assignment in scalar
+context will translate that into the number of elements (here, the
+number of times the pattern matched) and assign that to $count. Note
+that simply using
+
+ $count = $string =~ /\d+/g;
+
+would not have worked, since a pattern match in scalar context will
+only return true or false, rather than a count of matches.
+
+The final element of a list assignment may be an array or a hash:
+
+ ($a, $b, @rest) = split;
+ my($a, $b, %rest) = @_;
+
+You can actually put an array or hash anywhere in the list, but the first one
+in the list will soak up all the values, and anything after it will become
+undefined. This may be useful in a my() or local().
+
+A hash can be initialized using a literal list holding pairs of
+items to be interpreted as a key and a value:
+
+ # same as map assignment above
+ %map = ('red',0x00f,'blue',0x0f0,'green',0xf00);
+
+While literal lists and named arrays are often interchangeable, that's
+not the case for hashes. Just because you can subscript a list value like
+a normal array does not mean that you can subscript a list value as a
+hash. Likewise, hashes included as parts of other lists (including
+parameters lists and return lists from functions) always flatten out into
+key/value pairs. That's why it's good to use references sometimes.
+
+It is often more readable to use the C<< => >> operator between key/value
+pairs. The C<< => >> operator is mostly just a more visually distinctive
+synonym for a comma, but it also arranges for its left-hand operand to be
+interpreted as a string -- if it's a bareword that would be a legal simple
+identifier (C<< => >> doesn't quote compound identifiers, that contain
+double colons). This makes it nice for initializing hashes:
+
+ %map = (
+ red => 0x00f,
+ blue => 0x0f0,
+ green => 0xf00,
+ );
+
+or for initializing hash references to be used as records:
+
+ $rec = {
+ witch => 'Mable the Merciless',
+ cat => 'Fluffy the Ferocious',
+ date => '10/31/1776',
+ };
+
+or for using call-by-named-parameter to complicated functions:
+
+ $field = $query->radio_group(
+ name => 'group_name',
+ values => ['eenie','meenie','minie'],
+ default => 'meenie',
+ linebreak => 'true',
+ labels => \%labels
+ );
+
+Note that just because a hash is initialized in that order doesn't
+mean that it comes out in that order. See L<perlfunc/sort> for examples
+of how to arrange for an output ordering.
+
+=head2 Subscripts
+
+An array is subscripted by specifying a dollar sign (C<$>), then the
+name of the array (without the leading C<@>), then the subscript inside
+square brackets. For example:
+
+ @myarray = (5, 50, 500, 5000);
+ print "The Third Element is", $myarray[2], "\n";
+
+The array indices start with 0. A negative subscript retrieves its
+value from the end. In our example, C<$myarray[-1]> would have been
+5000, and C<$myarray[-2]> would have been 500.
+
+Hash subscripts are similar, only instead of square brackets curly brackets
+are used. For example:
+
+ %scientists =
+ (
+ "Newton" => "Isaac",
+ "Einstein" => "Albert",
+ "Darwin" => "Charles",
+ "Feynman" => "Richard",
+ );
+
+ print "Darwin's First Name is ", $scientists{"Darwin"}, "\n";
+
+=head2 Slices
+X<slice> X<array, slice> X<hash, slice>
+
+A common way to access an array or a hash is one scalar element at a
+time. You can also subscript a list to get a single element from it.
+
+ $whoami = $ENV{"USER"}; # one element from the hash
+ $parent = $ISA[0]; # one element from the array
+ $dir = (getpwnam("daemon"))[7]; # likewise, but with list
+
+A slice accesses several elements of a list, an array, or a hash
+simultaneously using a list of subscripts. It's more convenient
+than writing out the individual elements as a list of separate
+scalar values.
+
+ ($him, $her) = @folks[0,-1]; # array slice
+ @them = @folks[0 .. 3]; # array slice
+ ($who, $home) = @ENV{"USER", "HOME"}; # hash slice
+ ($uid, $dir) = (getpwnam("daemon"))[2,7]; # list slice
+
+Since you can assign to a list of variables, you can also assign to
+an array or hash slice.
+
+ @days[3..5] = qw/Wed Thu Fri/;
+ @colors{'red','blue','green'}
+ = (0xff0000, 0x0000ff, 0x00ff00);
+ @folks[0, -1] = @folks[-1, 0];
+
+The previous assignments are exactly equivalent to
+
+ ($days[3], $days[4], $days[5]) = qw/Wed Thu Fri/;
+ ($colors{'red'}, $colors{'blue'}, $colors{'green'})
+ = (0xff0000, 0x0000ff, 0x00ff00);
+ ($folks[0], $folks[-1]) = ($folks[-1], $folks[0]);
+
+Since changing a slice changes the original array or hash that it's
+slicing, a C<foreach> construct will alter some--or even all--of the
+values of the array or hash.
+
+ foreach (@array[ 4 .. 10 ]) { s/peter/paul/ }
+
+ foreach (@hash{qw[key1 key2]}) {
+ s/^\s+//; # trim leading whitespace
+ s/\s+$//; # trim trailing whitespace
+ s/(\w+)/\u\L$1/g; # "titlecase" words
+ }
+
+A slice of an empty list is still an empty list. Thus:
+
+ @a = ()[1,0]; # @a has no elements
+ @b = (@a)[0,1]; # @b has no elements
+ @c = (0,1)[2,3]; # @c has no elements
+
+But:
+
+ @a = (1)[1,0]; # @a has two elements
+ @b = (1,undef)[1,0,2]; # @b has three elements
+
+This makes it easy to write loops that terminate when a null list
+is returned:
+
+ while ( ($home, $user) = (getpwent)[7,0]) {
+ printf "%-8s %s\n", $user, $home;
+ }
+
+As noted earlier in this document, the scalar sense of list assignment
+is the number of elements on the right-hand side of the assignment.
+The null list contains no elements, so when the password file is
+exhausted, the result is 0, not 2.
+
+If you're confused about why you use an '@' there on a hash slice
+instead of a '%', think of it like this. The type of bracket (square
+or curly) governs whether it's an array or a hash being looked at.
+On the other hand, the leading symbol ('$' or '@') on the array or
+hash indicates whether you are getting back a singular value (a
+scalar) or a plural one (a list).
+
+=head2 Typeglobs and Filehandles
+X<typeglob> X<filehandle> X<*>
+
+Perl uses an internal type called a I<typeglob> to hold an entire
+symbol table entry. The type prefix of a typeglob is a C<*>, because
+it represents all types. This used to be the preferred way to
+pass arrays and hashes by reference into a function, but now that
+we have real references, this is seldom needed.
+
+The main use of typeglobs in modern Perl is create symbol table aliases.
+This assignment:
+
+ *this = *that;
+
+makes $this an alias for $that, @this an alias for @that, %this an alias
+for %that, &this an alias for &that, etc. Much safer is to use a reference.
+This:
+
+ local *Here::blue = \$There::green;
+
+temporarily makes $Here::blue an alias for $There::green, but doesn't
+make @Here::blue an alias for @There::green, or %Here::blue an alias for
+%There::green, etc. See L<perlmod/"Symbol Tables"> for more examples
+of this. Strange though this may seem, this is the basis for the whole
+module import/export system.
+
+Another use for typeglobs is to pass filehandles into a function or
+to create new filehandles. If you need to use a typeglob to save away
+a filehandle, do it this way:
+
+ $fh = *STDOUT;
+
+or perhaps as a real reference, like this:
+
+ $fh = \*STDOUT;
+
+See L<perlsub> for examples of using these as indirect filehandles
+in functions.
+
+Typeglobs are also a way to create a local filehandle using the local()
+operator. These last until their block is exited, but may be passed back.
+For example:
+
+ sub newopen {
+ my $path = shift;
+ local *FH; # not my!
+ open (FH, $path) or return undef;
+ return *FH;
+ }
+ $fh = newopen('/etc/passwd');
+
+Now that we have the C<*foo{THING}> notation, typeglobs aren't used as much
+for filehandle manipulations, although they're still needed to pass brand
+new file and directory handles into or out of functions. That's because
+C<*HANDLE{IO}> only works if HANDLE has already been used as a handle.
+In other words, C<*FH> must be used to create new symbol table entries;
+C<*foo{THING}> cannot. When in doubt, use C<*FH>.
+
+All functions that are capable of creating filehandles (open(),
+opendir(), pipe(), socketpair(), sysopen(), socket(), and accept())
+automatically create an anonymous filehandle if the handle passed to
+them is an uninitialized scalar variable. This allows the constructs
+such as C<open(my $fh, ...)> and C<open(local $fh,...)> to be used to
+create filehandles that will conveniently be closed automatically when
+the scope ends, provided there are no other references to them. This
+largely eliminates the need for typeglobs when opening filehandles
+that must be passed around, as in the following example:
+
+ sub myopen {
+ open my $fh, "@_"
+ or die "Can't open '@_': $!";
+ return $fh;
+ }
+
+ {
+ my $f = myopen("</etc/motd");
+ print <$f>;
+ # $f implicitly closed here
+ }
+
+Note that if an initialized scalar variable is used instead the
+result is different: C<my $fh='zzz'; open($fh, ...)> is equivalent
+to C<open( *{'zzz'}, ...)>.
+C<use strict 'refs'> forbids such practice.
+
+Another way to create anonymous filehandles is with the Symbol
+module or with the IO::Handle module and its ilk. These modules
+have the advantage of not hiding different types of the same name
+during the local(). See the bottom of L<perlfunc/open()> for an
+example.
+
+=head1 SEE ALSO
+
+See L<perlvar> for a description of Perl's built-in variables and
+a discussion of legal variable names. See L<perlref>, L<perlsub>,
+and L<perlmod/"Symbol Tables"> for more discussion on typeglobs and
+the C<*foo{THING}> syntax.