An array in Perl is a variable used to store an ordered list of scalar values. An array variable is preceded by an “at” (@) sign. The size of an array can be determined using the scalar context on the array which returns the number of elements in the array
Example 1:
#!/usr/bin/perl # Initializing the array @a = (1, 2, 3);
# Assigning the array to a scalar # variable which stores size of # the array $s = @a ;
# Printing the size print "Size of the Array is $s" ;
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Size of the Array is 3
Above code returns the physical size of the array, not the number of valid elements. In order to obtain the maximum index of an array, ‘$#’ is used as shown in the example below:
Example 2:
#!/usr/bin/perl # Initializing the array @a = (1, 2, 3);
# Store the value at any index # Let's take index 15 here, $a [15] = 20;
# Printing the Array print "Array is @a" ;
# Getting the maximum index # of the array $i = $#a ;
# Printing the Max. Index print "\nMaximum index is $i" ;
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Array is 1 2 3 20 Maximum index is 15
Here is how the above code works:-
Step1: Initializing an array with some values
Step2: Assigning a value at any random index leaving the other indices blank
Step3: Printing the array to show the blank spaces left in the array
Step4: To get the maximum index ‘$#’ is used
Step5: Further, print the maximum index