Bug #75703 for Data-Alias: Using &deref prevents &alias from working

Mon Mar 12 01:29:49 2012 rsimoes [...] cpan.org - Ticket created

Subject:

Using &deref prevents &alias from working

The documentation for Data::Alias states that &deref "Applies the applicable dereferencing operator to each." However, when &alias is used together with &deref, it yields an unexpected result: use Data::Alias qw(alias deref); my $arref = [qw(a..z)]; print $arref, "\n"; # ARRAY(0x13a5de8) alias my @arr1 = @$arref; print \@arr1, "\n"; # ARRAY(0x13a5de8) alias my @arr2 = deref $arref; print \@arr2, "\n"; # ARRAY(0x13ba458)

Sun Aug 04 13:23:59 2013 zefram [...] fysh.org - Correspondence added

Subject:	Re: [rt.cpan.org #75703] Using &deref prevents &alias from working
Date:	Sun, 4 Aug 2013 18:23:44 +0100
To:	Richard Sim??es via RT <bug-Data-Alias [...] rt.cpan.org>
From:	Zefram <zefram [...] fysh.org>

Richard Sim??es via RT wrote: Show quoted text

>The documentation for Data::Alias states that &deref "Applies the >applicable dereferencing operator to each." However, when &alias is used >together with &deref, it yields an unexpected result:

You were expecting to alias the underlying array. However, that it does not is not a bug in the code. "deref $arref" is *not* precisely equivalent to "@$arref". deref is not a magical operator. Rather, it's a *function*, and when given an arry reference it dereferences that and returns the elements of the array. What you get back is necessarily a list of the array elements, and there is no remaining reference to the original array. The alias operator then cannot alias to the original array; it falls back to the general list-assignment behaviour of aliasing the elements of the list. The documentation could be clearer. -zefram

Sun Aug 04 13:23:59 2013 The RT System itself - Status changed from 'new' to 'open'

Sun Aug 04 14:10:51 2013 ZEFRAM [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

Doc expanded in Data-Alias-1.17, now on CPAN.

Sun Aug 04 14:10:52 2013 ZEFRAM [...] cpan.org - Status changed from 'open' to 'resolved'