it's probably just me

Hi perl mavens,

I'm sure I just don't understand something here, but this one makes zero
sense to me:

The following snippet prints a 1

                local @aList;

                push @aList, ['first','second','third'];

                my $nCount = @aList;

                print "count: $nCount";

 

BUT, if I add one seemingly irrelevant line ( the second one below ),
something crazy happens:

                local @aList;

                print "non-existent value: $aList[0][0]\n";

                push @aList, ['first','second','third'];

                my $nCount = @aList;

                print "count: $nCount";

 

instead of printing a 1, the last line prints a 2

So the reference in the first print statement to $aList[0][0] appears to
have the affect of creating a row in the array.

Is this supposed to work this way? Why would such a reference to a
non-existent array row result in the creation of an array row?

Thank you.

-          john

 

John DePasquale

Chief Executive Officer

Paradigm Consulting

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