Bug #88095 for Variable-Magic: Return value of `get` magic

Sun Aug 25 03:33:19 2013 perl [...] toby.ink - Ticket created

Subject:

Return value of `get` magic

Although the documentation says that only the return value of `len` is significant, what I've found is that if you return $_[0] from `get` magic, all is well; but if you return anything else you occasionally get "not numeric" warnings. Is this a known issue? If not, I can attempt to put together a minimal test case.

Fri Aug 30 15:33:06 2013 vpit [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

Hello to you too, While the return value of a magic callback holds no meaning except for 'len' magic, it is actually not ignored by Variable::Magic : it gets coerced into a C integer that is handled back to perl (which usually does nothing out of it). This coercion step causes the "non numeric" warnings you're seeing when you're not returning a scalar that looks like a number. Returning $_[0] doesn't trigger the warning because it is a reference to the magical value, which silently numifies to its C address. I believe the documentation is pretty clear about this, but I'm open to suggestions if you have a better wording about this part. Vincent

Fri Aug 30 15:33:06 2013 The RT System itself - Status changed from 'new' to 'open'

Sat Aug 31 16:12:37 2013 perl [...] toby.ink - Correspondence added

Reading the documentation again now, I can't imagine how I missed it. It seems pretty clear.

Mon Sep 02 07:01:59 2013 vpit [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

Closing.

Mon Sep 02 07:02:00 2013 vpit [...] cpan.org - Status changed from 'open' to 'rejected'