[comp.lang.perl] Semicolon? What semicolon?

blarsen@spider.uio.no (Bjorn Larsen) (01/11/91)

Playing around with Tom's reported scalar split strangeness,
I came up with this weirdo:

 ulrik $ perl -ne '$a=('
 syntax error in file /tmp/perl-ea28951 at line 2, next token ";"
 Execution of /tmp/perl-ea28951 aborted due to compilation errors.
 ulrik $

Obviously the perl code is meaningless, but what on earth
is the ";" doing there?

[ My guess is that Perl implements -e by tacking on a ";" at the end
  of the Perl code if it is missing -- if I remember right that was
  added by Larry to please Randal some time ago -- but the error message
  still can be rather confusing to someone who didn't overhear the
  discussion way back then. ]

- bjorn