http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=26922

elusion has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

ok, perl monks, I think I'm a little over my head this time. I'm trying to print what I think is an array of a hash of a reference to an array. I'm calling one of Net::Pop3's methods (get) which get's a message and stores it as a reference to an array. This is the code @{$msgs[$command]{message}} = $pop->get($command); now how do I explain that and how do I print that? Thanx for your help,

- p u n k k i d
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -Albert Einstein

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Complicated Nested Data Structures
by jlp (Friar) on Aug 09, 2000 at 05:58 UTC
    I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you want to print the datastructure itself, or the data it contains? If you want to print a representation of the datastructure, use Data::Dumper: 

    use Data::Dumper;
my $structure = [ 'complex', { data => 'structure' } ];
print Dumper($structure);

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      Sorry, I tend to think a little different than most people and assume the wrong things. That line of code assigns a reference to an array which contains an email message. I want to be able to print that. I hope that makes more sense.

      - p u n k k i d
      "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -Albert Einstein

[reply]
        Gotcha. No problem :) If all you want to do is print the contents of an array reference, just do:

        print @{ $arrayref };

        So, in your example, all you should have to do is:

        print @{ $msgs[$command]->{message} }

        assuming I understand the way your datastructure is setup. Hope that helps.

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Re: Complicated Nested Data Structures
by btrott (Parson) on Aug 09, 2000 at 06:30 UTC
    The get method returns an array *reference*, not an actual array. So your statement should be 
        $msgs[$command]{message} = $pop->get($command);

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    That will store the array reference in 
        $msgs[$command]{message}

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    To dump our your @msgs array--to get a sense of what it looks like, visually--you can use Data::Dumper, as jlp suggested: 
        print Dumper \@msgs;

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      Thanx. That worked beautifully, once I realized that in order to print it I need to say print @{msgs[$command]{message}}; I appreciate your help.

      - p u n k k i d
      "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -Albert Einstein

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