Effective Perl Programming: Ways to Write Better, More Idiomatic Perl, Second Edition > Idiomatic Perl > Item 15. Use $_ for elegance and brevity

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Effective Perl Programming: Ways to Write Better, More Idiomatic Perl, Second Edition

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Ch. 1. The Basics of Perl

Ch. 2. Idiomatic Perl

Item 15. Use $_ for elegance and brevity

Item 16. Know Perl’s other default arguments

Item 17. Know common shorthand and syntax quirks

Item 18. Avoid excessive punctuation

Item 19. Format lists for easy maintenance

Item 20. Use foreach, map, and grep as appropriate

Item 21. Know the different ways to quote strings

Item 22. Learn the myriad ways of sorting

Item 23. Make work easier with smart matching

Item 24. Use given-when to make a switch statement

Item 25. Use do {} to create inline subroutines

Item 26. Use List::Util and List::MoreUtils for easy list manipulation

Item 27. Use autodie to simplify error handling

Ch. 3. Regular Expressions

Ch. 4. Subroutines

Ch. 5. Files and Filehandles

Appx. A. Perl Resources

Appx. B. Map from First to Second Edition

Index

Item 15. Use `$_` for elegance and brevity

“Dollar underscore,” or $_—you may love it, or you may hate it, but either way, if you’re going to be a proficient Perl programmer, you need to understand it.

$_ is a default argument for many operators, and also for some control structures. Here are some examples:

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Contents

Chapter 2. Idiomatic Perl > Item 15. Use $_ for elegance and brevity

Item 15. Use $_ for elegance and brevity

Item 15. Use `$_` for elegance and brevity