From @mhasch

This is a bug report for perl from mhasch@​cpan.org,
generated with the help of perlbug 1.36 running under perl 5.10.0.

There is a misnomer in the documentation of the % operator.

You don't calculate the modulus of two numbers. You calculate the
common residue or remainder of a number with respect to a modulus.
Thus, in "A = B % C", C is the modulus, while A should be called
something like common residue or remainder in integer division.

I suggest to fix the paragraph on % in perlop.pod with the patch
attached below.

Martin Becker (aka Martin Hasch) <mhasch(at)cpan.org>

diff -ru perl-5.10.0/pod/perlop.pod perl-5.10.0-patched/pod/perlop.pod
--- perl-5.10.0/pod/perlop.pod  Tue Dec 18 11:47:08 2007
+++ perl-5.10.0-patched/pod/perlop.pod  Tue Jan 29 00:19:31 2008
@@ -260,7 +260,7 @@
 Binary "/" divides two numbers.
 X</> X<slash>

-Binary "%" computes the modulus of two numbers.  Given integer
+Binary "%" computes the division remainder of two numbers.  Given integer
 operands C<$a> and C<$b>: If C<$b> is positive, then C<$a % $b> is
 C<$a> minus the largest multiple of C<$b> that is not greater than
 C<$a>.  If C<$b> is negative, then C<$a % $b> is C<$a> minus the


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Site configuration information for perl 5.10.0​:

[Deleted -- platform details considered irrelevant]

@rgs - Status changed from 'new' to 'resolved'

From @rgs

On 29/01/2008, via RT mhasch @​ cpan. org <perlbug-followup@​perl.org> wrote​:

There is a misnomer in the documentation of the % operator.

You don't calculate the modulus of two numbers. You calculate the
common residue or remainder of a number with respect to a modulus.
Thus, in "A = B % C", C is the modulus, while A should be called
something like common residue or remainder in integer division.

I suggest to fix the paragraph on % in perlop.pod with the patch
attached below.

Martin Becker (aka Martin Hasch) <mhasch(at)cpan.org>

diff -ru perl-5.10.0/pod/perlop.pod perl-5.10.0-patched/pod/perlop.pod
--- perl-5.10.0/pod/perlop.pod Tue Dec 18 11​:47​:08 2007
+++ perl-5.10.0-patched/pod/perlop.pod Tue Jan 29 00​:19​:31 2008

Thanks, applied to bleadperl.