How to write a function that clears an array? - PERL Beginners

[Richard]

I'm passing a singularly dimensioned array to a
function. I need to clear the array in the function so
that when I return to the main program, there are no
entries in the array variable I passed to the
function.

Can someone write a small function that does this?
Thanks,
Sieg

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[Jeff]

On Apr 10, Richard Heintze said:
 

You have to pass the array by reference, then.

my array = (1 .. 4);

print "(array)\n"; # (1 2 3 4)
my_func(\array);
print "(array)\n"; # ()

sub my_func {
my $array_ref = shift;
$array_ref = ();
}

--
Jeff "japhy" Pinyan com http://www.pobox.com/~japhy/
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[Charles]

Jeff 'japhy' Pinyan <org> wrote:
:
: On Apr 10, Richard Heintze said:
:
: > I'm passing a singularly dimensioned array to
: > a function. I need to clear the array in the
: > function so that when I return to the main
: > program, there are no entries in the array
: > variable I passed to the function.
:
: You have to pass the array by reference, then.
:
: my array = (1 .. 4);
:
: print "(array)\n"; # (1 2 3 4)
: my_func(\array);
: print "(array)\n"; # ()
:
: sub my_func {
: my $array_ref = shift;
: $array_ref = ();
: }

Jeff's example will do what you want, but I'm not
certain it is a Good Thing. I try to avoid modifying
function arguments inside a function. There are some
good reasons, like when the array is very large, but
in general I would advise avoiding this.

This seems clearer to me:

my array = ( 1 .. 4 );

my_func(\array);

array = ();

sub my_func {
my $array_ref = shift;
# do stuff
}


Actually, it makes me wonder why we are using
array at all:

my_func( [ 1 .. 4 ] );

sub my_func {
my $array_ref = shift;
# do stuff
}



HTH,

Charles K. Clarkson
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254 968-8328

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