Loop not ending, insight as to why?

[LANkrypt0]

I wrote the following code and for some reason it does not exit when my
$word is the same as $ARGV[0].

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
Is it because it needs to actually run through every foreach loop?

Thanks

==+ BEGIN CODE +==

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

my @valpha = ("a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h", "i", "j", "k", "l",
"m", "n", "o", "p", "q", "r", "s", "t", "u", "v", "w", "x", "y", "z");
my $word;

until ($word eq $ARGV[0])
{
foreach my $letter1 (@valpha)
{
foreach my $letter2 (@valpha)
{
foreach my $letter3 (@valpha)
{
foreach my $letter4 (@valpha)
{
foreach my $letter5 (@valpha)
{
$word = $letter1.$lette r2.$letter3.$le tter4.$letter5;
print "$word\n";
}
}
}
}
}
}
print "Word found!\n";

==+ END CODE +==

--
LANkrypt0 :: aa#2118

[Jürgen Exner]

Re: Loop not ending, insight as to why?

LANkrypt0 wrote:[color=blue]
> I wrote the following code and for some reason it does not exit when
> my $word is the same as $ARGV[0].
>
> Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
> Is it because it needs to actually run through every foreach loop?
>
> Thanks
>
> ==+ BEGIN CODE +==
>
> #!/usr/bin/perl
> use strict;
>
> my @valpha = ("a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h", "i", "j", "k",
> "l", "m", "n", "o", "p", "q", "r", "s", "t", "u", "v", "w", "x", "y",
> "z"); my $word;
>
> until ($word eq $ARGV[0])
> {
> foreach my $letter1 (@valpha)
> {
> foreach my $letter2 (@valpha)
> {
> foreach my $letter3 (@valpha)
> {
> foreach my $letter4 (@valpha)
> {
> foreach my $letter5 (@valpha)
> {
> $word = $letter1.$lette r2.$letter3.$le tter4.$letter5;
> print "$word\n";
> }
> }
> }
> }
> }
> }
> print "Word found!\n";
>
> ==+ END CODE +==[/color]

You got your program logic totally messed up.
For the sake of argument imagine that the "until" does not exist.
Now, how often is the outermost "foreach" being executed? Or to rephrase the
question, what would be the last letter, that is processed by the outermost
loop?

The same logic applies to the inner loops, too, which ultimately means that
$word has a value of "zzzzz" when the outermost foreach terminates.

Only now after all the inner loops are done will the "until" have a chance
to kick in and to check if the condition is satisfied. Obviously it is not
(unless you program argument happens to be "zzzzz").
Therefore the whole foreach loop chaos starts over again.

jue