Perl CGI charset magic thingy (was: How to be an expert)

[Ben Scott]

On 6/13/06, Ken D'Ambrosio <ken at proximatech.net> wrote:
> Speaking about being ignorant, I *think* I understand what the following
> line does...



> ... but, if so, then I don't understand why.  Anyone care to give
> me their interpretation?  [From /usr/share/perl5/Bugzilla/CGI.pm]
>
>     $self->charset(Param('utf8') ? 'UTF-8' : '');

  Well, that looks like the ternary operator (conditional expression).
 To break it out:

if ($self->charsetParam('utf8')) {
	return "UTF-8";
	}
else {
	return "";	# empty string
	}

  (Syntax may be slightly wrong, my Perl's a tad rusty.)

  As for why, I suspect that depends on the context.

-- Ben