Inaccuracy in perldiag

[p5pRT]

Migrated from rt.perl.org#1814 (status was 'resolved')

Searchable as RT1814$

[p5pRT]

From mcafee@waits.facilities.med.umich.edu

The perldiag man page includes the following paragraph​:

  Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
  (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a
  symbolic reference must be a defined value. This helps
  to delurk some insidious errors.

In fact, it appears that this is only a fatal error when strict refs is in
effect. It's not an error at all, otherwise.

Perl Info

Site configuration information for perl 5.00503:

Configured by mcafee at Tue Aug 31 13:06:59 EDT 1999.

Summary of my perl5 (5.0 patchlevel 5 subversion 3) configuration:
  Platform:
    osname=solaris, osvers=2.6, archname=sun4-solaris
    uname='sunos waits.facilities.med.umich.edu 5.6 generic_105181-03 sun4u sparc '
    hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
    usethreads=undef useperlio=undef d_sfio=undef
  Compiler:
    cc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/ -B/usr/ccs/bin/', optimize='-O', gccversion=egcs-2.91.66 19990314 (egcs-1.1.2 release)
    cppflags='-I/usr/local/include'
    ccflags ='-I/usr/local/include'
    stdchar='unsigned char', d_stdstdio=define, usevfork=false
    intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8
    d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=16
    alignbytes=8, usemymalloc=y, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries:
    ld='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/ -B/usr/ccs/bin/', ldflags =' -L/usr/local/lib'
    libpth=/usr/local/lib /lib /usr/lib /usr/ccs/lib
    libs=-lsocket -lnsl -lgdbm -ldl -lm -lc -lcrypt
    libc=/lib/libc.so, so=so, useshrplib=false, libperl=libperl.a
  Dynamic Linking:
    dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=so, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags=' '
    cccdlflags='-fPIC', lddlflags='-G -L/usr/local/lib'

Locally applied patches:
    


@INC for perl 5.00503:
    /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/sun4-solaris
    /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
    /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/sun4-solaris
    /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
    .


Environment for perl 5.00503:
    HOME=/export/home/mcafee
    LANG (unset)
    LANGUAGE (unset)
    LC_CTYPE=en_US
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/gnome/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/um/tcl/lib:/usr/um/tk/lib:/usr/local/qt/lib
    LOGDIR (unset)
    PATH=/export/home/mcafee/bin:/usr/local/gnome/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/openwin/bin:/usr/um/gnu/bin:/usr/um/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/um/perl/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/qt/bin
    PERL_BADLANG (unset)
    SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash

[p5pRT]

From @tamias

On Sun, Nov 21, 1999 at 04​:52​:21AM -0500, Sean McAfee wrote​:

The perldiag man page includes the following paragraph​:

 Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
     \(F\) A value used as either a hard reference or a
     symbolic reference must be a defined value\.  This helps
     to delurk some insidious errors\.

In fact, it appears that this is only a fatal error when strict refs is in
effect. It's not an error at all, otherwise.

~> perl
no strict;
undef->[1];
Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at - line 2.
~>

Ronald

[p5pRT]

From [Unknown Contact. See original ticket]

Ronald J Kimball <rjk@​linguist.dartmouth.edu> wrote​:

On Sun, Nov 21, 1999 at 04​:52​:21AM -0500, Sean McAfee wrote​:

The perldiag man page includes the following paragraph​:

 Can't use an undefined value as %s reference
     \(F\) A value used as either a hard reference or a
     symbolic reference must be a defined value\.  This helps
     to delurk some insidious errors\.

In fact, it appears that this is only a fatal error when strict refs is in
effect. It's not an error at all, otherwise.

~> perl
no strict;
undef->[1];
Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at - line 2.

Guess I should have included a code sample. Sorry about the oversight.

bash-2.03$ perl -le '$x = undef; print @​$x'

bash-2.03$ perl -le 'use strict; my $x = undef; print @​$x'
Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at -e line 1.
bash-2.03$

Here's the essential part of the code which originally brought the behavior
to my attention​:

use strict;
my (@​result, %id, %dup);

%id = ( 1 => 'a', 2 => 'b', 3 => 'c');
%dup = ( 2 => [ 'x', 'y', 'z' ] );

@​result = map +($id{$_}, @​{ $dup{$_} }), 1, 2, 3;

I got the above error until I preceded the last line with "no strict 'refs'".

--
Sean McAfee | GCS d->-- s+++​: a27 C++ US+++ P+++$ L++ E- W+ N++ |
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