Why is 'print (52-80)*42' different than 'print 42*(52-80)' in Perl?

Question

Perl:: What is:

1. (52-80)*42
2. 42*(52-80)

Ans:

1. -28
2. -1176

Why?

Have fun

Answer 1

Thanks to Perl's wacky parsing rules (oh Perl, you kook!), these statements:

print ((52-80)*42) , "\n";
print (52-80)*42 , "\n";

Are interpreted as if they were written:

(print ((52-80)*42)), "\n";
(print (52-80))*42, "\n";

This is why you end up seeing -1176-28 on one line, and the expected blank line is missing. Perl sees (print-expr), "\n"; and simply throws away the newline instead of printing it.