this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Perl had
$[
(yes, just those two characters) to allow setting of the first array index, but it's a fatal error to put anything but 0 into it now.Of course, since Perl arrays can be negative subscripted from the last element, you can stand on your head and index the array negatively from the wrong end. -1, -2, -3 etc. Use
unshift
to put things on the beginning (logical "end") of what you're doing rather than the usualpush
. Presto, a 1-based array (up to sign, anyway).You may wish to file this under "stupid, but it works".
People with more time / more need for something that looks professional, would probably be better off writing something that uses
tie
instead. (Or, yes, yes, a different language entirely, hush now.)Thanks I hate it.
But still better than mathlab not allowing 0 indexed arrays.