sprintf and arrays 2

[chazoid]

Hi all,
This shouldn't be too difficult for you guys.

I just want to format the length of an array using sprintf to add a leading zero:

$total = sprintf("%02d", @files);

for an array with 5 elements this gives me "00" instead of "05". The perl docs say something about arrays not working as you would expect, but it wasn't too clear on it.

for now, I'm just doing this, but is it the only way?

$total = @files;
$total = sprintf("%02d", $total);

Thanks!

justin

 

[rosenk]

The problem is that [tt]$total = sprintf("%02d", @files);[/tt] is giving @files an array context, so the format string [tt]"%02d"[/tt] is being applied to the first element of the array. You need to force a scalar context to get the size of the array, which you're doing with [tt]$total = @files[/tt].

You could, instead, do:
[tt]$total = sprintf("%02d", scalar @files);[/tt]

This forces a scalar context for [tt]@files[/tt]

 

[chazoid]

ahh... I understand now.. Thanks for the quick reply! I can go home early today