Initialize (clear) an array.

Solution

    my @array = ();

Solution

$#array is the subscript of the last element of the array (which is one less than the length of the array, since arrays start from zero). Assigning to $#array changes the length of the array @array, hence you can destroy (or clear) all values of the array between the last element and the newly assigned position. By assigning -1, everything is destroyed and the array is cleared. I recommend the above solution to this one.

    $#array = -1;

Determine whether an array value exists, is defined, or is true.

Solution

    print "Value EXISTS, but may be undefined.\n"  if exists  $array[ $index ];
    print "Value is DEFINED, but may be false.\n"  if defined $array[ $index ];
    print "Value at array index $index is TRUE.\n" if         $array[ $index ];

Get the size of an array.

Solution

If you just want to print the size, this is the simplest way.

    print "size of array: " . @array . ".\n";

Solution

If you want to retain the size in a variable, just evaluate the array in implicit scalar context.

    $size = @array;
    print "size of array: $size.\n";

Explicit scalar context can be achieved by using the function scalar.

    $size = scalar @array;
    print "size of array: $size.\n";

Since the results are the same, I recommend the implicit solution.

Solution

There are also a number of other methods of getting the array size.

    $size = $#array + 1;

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AUTHOR

Alex BATKO <abatko AT cs.mcgill.ca>

Thanks to all those who have written with suggestions and comments.

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SEE ALSO

http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~abatko/computers/programming/perl/howto/

http://alex.exitloop.ca/abatko/computers/programming/perl/howto/