Scalar Variables

Variables Scalar Variables

The most basic kind of variable in Perl is the scalar variable.

Scalar variables hold both strings and numbers, and are remarkable in that strings and numbers are completely interchangable.

We have seen basic assignment of scalar (single data element) variables already:

$myVar = 'c';             # Character
$myVar = "Hello World!";  # String
$myVar = 42;              # Integer
$myVar = 3.14159;         # Float

Notice that we did NOT have to
- declare the variable before using it
- define the variable's data type
- allocate memory for new data values