Perl operators have the following associativity and precedence:
nonassoc print printf exec system sort reverse chmod chown kill unlink utime die return left , right = += \-= *= etc. right ?: nonassoc .. left || left && left | ^ left & nonassoc == != <=> eq ne cmp nonassoc < > <= >= lt gt le ge nonassoc chdir exit eval reset sleep rand umask nonassoc -r -w -x etc. left << >> left + - . left * / % x left =~ !~ right ! ~ and unary minus right ** nonassoc ++ -- left `('
As mentioned earlier, if any list operator (print
, etc.) or any unary
operator (chdir
, etc.) is followed by a left parenthesis as the next
token on the same line, the operator and arguments within parentheses
are taken to be of highest precedence, just like a normal function call.
Examples:
chdir $foo || die; # (chdir $foo) || die chdir($foo) || die; # (chdir $foo) || die chdir ($foo) || die; # (chdir $foo) || die chdir +($foo) || die; # (chdir $foo) || die
but, because `*' is higher precedence than `||':
chdir $foo * 20; # chdir ($foo * 20) chdir($foo) * 20; # (chdir $foo) * 20 chdir ($foo) * 20; # (chdir $foo) * 20 chdir +($foo) * 20; # chdir ($foo * 20) rand 10 * 20; # rand (10 * 20) rand(10) * 20; # (rand 10) * 20 rand (10) * 20; # (rand 10) * 20 rand +(10) * 20; # rand (10 * 20)
In the absence of parentheses, the precedence of list operators such as
print
, sort
or chmod
is either very high or very
low depending on whether you look at the left side of operator or the
right side of it. For example, in
@ary = (1, 3, sort 4, 2); print @ary; # prints 1324
the commas on the right of the sort are evaluated before the sort, but the commas on the left are evaluated after. In other words, list operators tend to gobble up all the arguments that follow them, and then act like a simple term with regard to the preceding expression. Note that you have to be careful with parens:
# These evaluate exit before doing the print: print($foo, exit); # Obviously not what you want. print $foo, exit; # Nor is this. # These do the print before evaluating exit: (print $foo), exit; # This is what you want. print($foo), exit; # Or this. print ($foo), exit; # Or even this.
Also note that
print ($foo & 255) + 1, "\n";
probably doesn't do what you expect at first glance.