Perl - basic STDIN issue - linux

Question

I'm now with Perl.
i have the following code which the purpose is to extract the software name
by text parsing.
the software name in this case is "ddd" :
print "Please provide full installation path (Ex:/a/b/c/ddd)\n";
my $installPath = <STDIN>;
#going to extract software name
my #soft = split '/', $installPath;
my $softName = print "#soft[4]\n";
print "$softName\n";
but,
instead of getting "ddd" as software name i got:
ddd
1
i don't understand from where the '1' comes from?
Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

The error comes from this:
my $softName = print "#soft[4]\n";
# ^^^^^
The function print returns 1 (true) when it succeeds, which it does here. The 1 is assigned to your variable, which you then print.
print "$softName\n";
Short recap:
my $installPath = <STDIN>; # "/a/b/c/ddd"
my #soft = split '/', $installPath; # 5th element is "ddd"
my $softName = print "#soft[4]\n"; # this prints "ddd", but "1" is returned
# ^^^^^ print returns 1, which is assigned to $softName
print "$softName\n"; # "1" is printed
What you want is:
my $softName = $soft[4];
Which is just taking the 5th element of the array. You should use $ and not # when referring to a single element. You can use # when referring to a slice, multiple elements.
A better way to do what you are trying to do is using File::Basename:
use File::Basename;
my $softName = basename($installPath);
File::Basename is a core module in Perl 5.

Answer 2

my $softName = print "#soft[4]\n"; is a bad way of treating an array, and this is what is causing the issue.
When referencing an array as a whole, then the # should be used. What you have done here by referencing #soft[4], you do point at a particular value in the array, but you are still referring to it in an array context, and since $softName is a scalar that only wants one single value, perl tries its best to figure out what you want, since you want nothing like it at all. To make it clear to perl that you are referencing a specific item in the array and not the array as a whole, use $ instead. Perl will understand since you also specify [4].
In addition, what is being assigned to $softName is not that array value, but the result of the print which is the status code (this is where the "1" comes from).
To correct your code, change that line to:
my $softName = $soft[4];