Perl Language Variables Arrays
Example
Arrays store an ordered sequence of values. You can access the contents by index, or iterate over them. The values will stay in the order you filled them in.
my @numbers_to_ten = (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10); # More conveniently: (1..10)
my @chars_of_hello = ('h','e','l','l','o');
my @word_list = ('Hello','World');
# Note the sigil: access an @array item with $array[index]
my $second_char_of_hello = $chars_of_hello[1]; # 'e'
# Use negative indices to count from the end (with -1 being last)
my $last_char_of_hello = $chars_of_hello[-1];
# Assign an array to a scalar to get the length of the array
my $length_of_array = @chars_of_hello; # 5
# You can use $# to get the last index of an array, and confuse Stack Overflow
my $last_index_of_array = $#chars_of_hello; # 4
# You can also access multiple elements of an array at the same time
# This is called "array slice"
# Since this returns multiple values, the sigil to use here on the RHS is @
my @some_chars_of_hello = @chars_of_hello[1..3]; # ('H', 'e', 'l')
my @out_of_order_chars = @chars_of_hello[1,4,2]; # ('e', 'o', 'l')
# In Python you can say array[1:-1] to get all elements but first and last
# Not so in Perl: (1..-1) is an empty list. Use $# instead
my @empty_list = @chars_of_hello[1..-1]; # ()
my @inner_chars_of_hello = @chars_of_hello[1..$#chars_of_hello-1]; # ('e','l','l')
# Access beyond the end of the array yields undef, not an error
my $undef = $chars_of_hello[6]; # undef
Arrays are mutable:
use utf8; # necessary because this snippet is utf-8
$chars_of_hello[1] = 'u'; # ('h','u','l','l','o')
push @chars_of_hello, ('!', '!'); # ('h','u','l','l','o','!','!')
pop @chars_of_hello; # ('h','u','l','l','o','!')
shift @chars_of_hello; # ('u','l','l','o','!')
unshift @chars_of_hello, ('¡', 'H'); # ('¡','H','u','l','l','o','!')
@chars_of_hello[2..5] = ('O','L','A'); # ('¡','H','O','L','A',undef,'!') whoops!
delete $chars_of_hello[-2]; # ('¡','H','O','L','A', '!')
# Setting elements beyond the end of an array does not result in an error
# The array is extended with undef's as necessary. This is "autovivification."
my @array; # ()
my @array[3] = 'x'; # (undef, undef, undef, 'x')
Finally, you can loop over the contents of an array:
use v5.10; # necessary for 'say'
for my $number (@numbers_to_ten) {
say $number ** 2;
}
When used as booleans, arrays are true if they are not empty.
