I'm not sure I follow you on this one. I have one basic need: to convert a hash to a query string. Are you saying that I should have two functions to build one query string? That doesn't strike me as an optimal programming solution. Currently, the hash looks something like this:

my %hash = ( name  => 'Ovid',
             color => [ 'red', 'blue' ],
             COBOL => 'sucks' );
[download]

That's fed to the routine that creates the query string and everybody's happy. What you're suggesting seems to imply that I should break the hash in two and feed them in separately, or send them to different functions. That seems less efficient. Is there a benefit to approaching it that way, or did I misunderstand your response?

Cheers,
Ovid

Update: Hmm... it occurs to me that I could have made *all* values into array refs. The code would be smaller and easier to follow. The while{} loops becomes this:

while (($key, $value) = each %data) {
    $key = uri_escape( $key, $cgi_chars );
    foreach ( @$value ) {
        my $array_value = uri_escape( $_, $cgi_chars );
        $query_string .= "$key=$array_value&";
    }
}
[download]

Saved about six lines of code and made it cleaner, to boot. Damn. merlyn strikes again!

So here's the interesting question: is it coincidence that I was able to improve this subroutine and eliminate the ref, or is seeing a ref in code generally indicative of a poor algorithm that bears further investigation? Here's another question: is that last sentence pompous enough for you?

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