Perl 6 introduces the concept of so-called pointy blocks (or pointy arrow blocks). These are anonymous closure blocks, which return a reference to the function and can take arguments. The syntax of defining pointy blocks is an arrow -> followed by the argument list and a block of code. my $cube = -> $x {$x … Continue reading “📘 Anonymous code blocks in Perl 6”
Category: Raku
📘 Shortcut operator && in Perl 6
&& returns the first of the operands, which, after being converted to a Boolean value, becomes False. If none are False, then the last element is returned. Please note that the result is not a Boolean value but the value of one of the operands (unless they are Boolean already). say 10 && 0; # … Continue reading “📘 Shortcut operator && in Perl 6”
📘 Shortcut operator ^^ in Perl 6
^^ returns an operand that is True in a Boolean context and that is, at the same time, the only one in the given list. If nothing is found, Nil is returned. As soon as the operator sees the second True value, it stops evaluating the rest, because the result is already known. say 0 … Continue reading “📘 Shortcut operator ^^ in Perl 6”
📘 Infix operators min and max in Perl 6
min and max return, correspondently, the minimum and maximum value of their operands. say 20 min 10; # 10 say ‘three’ max ‘two’; # two (sorted alphabetically)
📘 Assign operator = in Perl 6
= assigns a value to a variable.
📘 List creation operator , in Perl 6
, creates a List object. Note that this operator, as a few mentioned above, can be chained to accept more than two operands. my $what = (1, 2, 3); say $what.WHAT; # (List) The comma is also used as a separator of parameters passed to the subroutine. To create an empty list, use a pair … Continue reading “📘 List creation operator , in Perl 6”
📘 Assignment meta-operator = in Perl 6
The design of the operators in Perl 6 is very consistent. For example, if you add a new operator to the language, Perl 6 will create a few more to keep the harmony. In this section, we will talk about the so-called meta-operators, the operators over other operators. The assignment meta-operators (=) use the other … Continue reading “📘 Assignment meta-operator = in Perl 6”
📘 Reduction meta-operator [ ] in Perl 6
For any infix operator op the reduction form [op] also exists. The reduction operator takes a list, enrols its values, and inserts the operator between them. Examine the example with the [*] reduction operator: [*] 1..5 The form above is equivalent to the following line: 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 Reduction … Continue reading “📘 Reduction meta-operator [ ] in Perl 6”
📘 Chapter 3. Code organisation in Perl 6
📘 Non-value argument passing in Perl 6 subs
By default, you pass the arguments by their values. Despite that, it is not possible to modify them inside the sub. To pass a variable by reference, add the is rw trait. (Note that formally this is not a reference but a mutable argument.) sub inc($x is rw) { $x++; } my $value = … Continue reading “📘 Non-value argument passing in Perl 6 subs”
📘 Anonymous subs in Perl 6
Let’s look at the creation of anonymous subs. One of the options (there are more than one) is to use syntax similar to what you often see in JavaScript. say sub ($x, $y) {$x ~ ‘ ‘ ~ $y}(“Perl”, 6); The first pair of parentheses contains the list of formal arguments of the anonymous sub; … Continue reading “📘 Anonymous subs in Perl 6”
📘 Modules in Perl 6
Basically, the Perl 6 modules are the files on disk containing the Perl 6 code. Modules are kept in files with the .pm extension. The disk hierarchy reflects the namespace enclosure, which means that a module named X::Y corresponds to the file X/Y.pm, which will be searched for in one of the predefined catalogues or … Continue reading “📘 Modules in Perl 6”
📘 Class attributes in Perl 6
Class data variables are called attributes. They are declared with the has keyword. An attribute’s scope is defined via its twigil. As usual, the first character of the twigil indicates the type of the container (thus, a scalar, an array, or a hash). The second character is either . if a variable is public or … Continue reading “📘 Class attributes in Perl 6”
📘 Reverse meta-operator R in Perl 6
The prefix R forms the reverse operator for the infix operators, such as / or cmp. The reverse operator does the same as the original but changes the order of the operands. If necessary, it also changes the operator’s associativity. This matters when you have more than two operands in a row. For example, in … Continue reading “📘 Reverse meta-operator R in Perl 6”
📘 Cross meta-operator X in Perl 6
The cross meta-operator prefix, X, applies an operation to all the possible combinations of the elements of the operands that are treated in list context. The result of the cross-operation is also a list. Here is an example that prints the coordinates for all the cells of a chess board: say ‘a’..’h’ X~ 1..8;
📘 Hyper-operators in Perl 6
Hyper-operators modify regular operators in such a way that the operation is applied to all the element of a list operand. Both unary and binary operators may be written in the hyper-operator form. To create a hyper-operator, add a pair of >> and/or << to the operation sign. Let’s start with a simple unary operator … Continue reading “📘 Hyper-operators in Perl 6”
📘 Chapter 1. Perl 6 Essentials
📘 Typed arguments in Perl 6 subs
Similarly to the above-described typed variables, it is possible to indicate that the sub’s parameters are typed. To do so, add a type name before the name of the parameter. sub say-hi(Str $name) { say “Hi, $name!”; } If the types of the expected and the actual parameters do not match, a compile-time error … Continue reading “📘 Typed arguments in Perl 6 subs”
📘 Optional parameters in Perl 6 subs
Optional parameters are marked with a question mark after their names. The defined built-in function helps to tell if the parameter was really passed: sub send-mail(Str $to, Str $bcc?) { if defined $bcc { # . . . say “Sent to $to with a bcc to $bcc.”; } else { … Continue reading “📘 Optional parameters in Perl 6 subs”
📘 Slurpy parameters and flattening in Perl 6
Perl 6 allows passing scalars, arrays, hashes, or objects of any other type as the arguments to a sub. There are no restrictions regarding the combination and its order in a sub declaration. For example, the first argument may be an array, and the second one may be a scalar. Perl 6 will pass the … Continue reading “📘 Slurpy parameters and flattening in Perl 6”