[FWP] Delayed semantical interpretation

[Peter Scott <Peter@PSDT.com>]

Disclaimer: I hated compiler theory, so my question may be rife with 
inconsistencies...

Sometimes the semantics of a statement cannot be determined until run 
time.  An example would be $a++, where you don't know whether it's going to 
do $a = $a + 1 or the magical string postincrement until you know the value 
of $a.  And of course there are polymorphic O-O methods and eval.

What's the most egregious construct in Perl with respect to this 
behavior?  Only a few tokens at most; I'm talking about language elements 
here, not obfuscated programs.  Something which produces the widest range 
of possible behavior that can't be narrowed until run-time.  eval doesn't 
count :-)


--
Peter Scott
Pacific Systems Design Technologies


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