Perl's lack of 'in' keyword

[Jonathan Stowe]

2008/10/9 Iain Barnett <iainspeed at gmail.com>:
>
> On 9 Oct 2008, at 11:51 am, Andy Armstrong wrote:
>
>> On 9 Oct 2008, at 01:39, Iain Barnett wrote:
>>>
>>> if $a ~~ $b     #this could mean several things
>>
>> A smart match between two scalars. Clear.
>>
>>> if $a in $b             #it is clear what this means
>>
>> One scalar is in another? WTF?
>
> What does smart match do if you pass it an array/hash/object ref? If it
> matches against the scalar part then it's not a very smart match, IMO.
>

Right, it was however unclear from your example what the contents of
the two variables were.

It will of course dereference a hash or array ref if appropriate.  I'm
not quite sure what you are proposing it should do when presented with
a blessed reference.