Perl ABC

1. Perl
›
2. Operators
›
3. here

Defined - or operator "//"

Starting with Perl 5.10, the very useful Defined-or operator " // " has been introduced. An operator followed by two slashes. It's very difficult to search, so it's a good idea to remember it early. In recent years, it's the most recommended function for me.

# Defined-or operator
// //

The Defined-or operator returns the lvalue if the lvalue is defined, and returns the rvalue if it is undefined.

# The right side is substituted
my $value = undef //'default'; # 'default'

# The left side is substituted
my $value = 0 //'default'; # 0
my $value = '' //'default'; # ''''
my $value = 'foo' //'default'; # 'foo'

This is very useful for defining a default value if no value is given.

my $name = $opts{name} //'Ken';

You can also write //= .

$value //='default';

Only if $value is undefined will $value be assigned'default'.

What did you do before Perl 5.10

Previously, in order to do this, you had to use defined function to write:

$value = 'default' unless defined $value;

Also, since this writing method is verbose, many people used the || operator to write as follows.

$value ||='default';

However, this way of writing introduced a potential bug to the application because'default' was assigned even if $value was 0 or an empty string.

With the introduction of the Defined-or operator, I'm happy that I don't have to worry about the description between the above two.