perl array initialization

Question

Hi,

How do I initialize an array to 0.

I have tried this.

my @arr = ();

but it always throws me a warning "Use of uninitialized value"

I do not know the size of the array before. I fill it dynamically.

I thought the above piece of code was supposed to initialize it to 0.

Can anybody tell me how to do this.

Thank you.

Answer 1

What do you mean by "initialize an array to zero"? Arrays don't contain "zero" -- they can contain "zero elements", which is the same as "an empty list". Or, you could have an array with one element, where that element is a zero: my @array = (0);

my @array = (); should work just fine -- it allocates a new array called @array, and then assigns it the empty list, (). Note that this is identical to simply saying my @array;, since the initial value of a new array is the empty list anyway.

Are you sure you are getting an error from this line, and not somewhere else in your code? Ensure you have use strict; use warnings; in your module or script, and check the line number of the error you get. (Posting some contextual code here might help, too.)

Answer 2

If I understand you, perhaps you don't need an array of zeroes; rather, you need a hash. The hash keys will be the values in the other array and the hash values will be the number of times the value exists in the other array:

use strict;
use warnings;

my @other_array = (0,0,0,1,2,2,3,3,3,4);
my %tallies;
$tallies{$_} ++ for @other_array;

print "$_ => $tallies{$_}\n" for sort {$a <=> $b} keys %tallies;    

Output:

0 => 3
1 => 1
2 => 2
3 => 3
4 => 1

To answer your specific question more directly, to create an array populated with a bunch of zeroes, you can use the technique in these two examples:

my @zeroes = (0) x 5;            # (0,0,0,0,0)

my @zeroes = (0) x @other_array; # A zero for each item in @other_array.
                                 # This works because in scalar context
                                 # an array evaluates to its size.

Answer 3

To produce the output in your comment to your post, this will do it:

use strict;
use warnings;

my @other_array = (0,0,0,1,2,2,3,3,3,4);
my @array;
my %uniqs;

$uniqs{$_}++ for @other_array;

foreach (keys %uniqs) { $array[$_]=$uniqs{$_} }

print "array[$_] = $array[$_]\n" for (0..$#array);

Output:

   array[0] = 3
   array[1] = 1
   array[2] = 2
   array[3] = 3
   array[4] = 1

This is different than your stated algorithm of producing a parallel array with zero values, but it is a more Perly way of doing it...

If you must have a parallel array that is the same size as your first array with the elements initialized to 0, this statement will dynamically do it: @array=(0) x scalar(@other_array); but really, you don't need to do that.