Count elements in multidimensional arrays

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

If I create a multidimensional array using the following:

#!/usr/bin/perl
my @ar1;
$ar1[0][0] = "one";
$ar1[0][1] = "two";
$ar1[1][0] = "three";
$ar1[1][1] = "four";
$ar1[1][2] = "five";
my $count = scalar @{ $ar1[1] };
print "count = $count\n";
[download]

./ar1

count = 3

However, if I create the array this way it doesn't work:

#!/usr/bin/perl
my @ar1;
$ar1 = (["one", "two"], ["three", "four", "five"]);
my $count = scalar @{ $ar1[1] };
print "count = $count\n";
[download]

./ar1

count =

What is the correct way to access / count the array elements using the array creation method in the second code segment?

Thanks, ...Kurt

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Re: Count elements in multidimensional arrays by Paladin (Vicar) on May 25, 2019 at 00:00 UTC
In the second one you are assigning to `$ar1` which isn't `@ar1`. If you used `strict` and `warnings` you would have been warned about this.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Count elements in multidimensional arrays by BillKSmith (Monsignor) on May 25, 2019 at 12:23 UTC
Paladin has already shown that you could have found your error yourself if you had used the pragmas "strict" and "warnings". Also note that a little extra whitespace to align your array definition can make it easier to read. That alone can help to avoid errors in accessing them. `use strict; use warnings; my @ar1 = ( ["one", "two", ], ["three", "four", "five", ], ); my $count = scalar @{ $ar1[1] }; print "count = $count\n";` [download] Bill	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Count elements in multidimensional arrays by Marshall (Canon) on May 26, 2019 at 01:40 UTC
In Perl, a 2-D array is an array of references to 1-D arrays. Look at Data Type: Array in the Tutorials section of Perl Monks. A Perl 2-D array can have a different number of "columns" on each "row". `#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my @ar1 = (["one", "two"], ["three", "four", "five"]); my $count = scalar @{ $ar1[1] }; print "count: Elements in 2nd Row = $count\n"; print "number of dimensions =", scalar @ar1, "\n"; my $total_elements; foreach my $row_ref (@ar1) { $total_elements += @$row_ref; } print "total elements in array:ar1=$total_elements\n"; __END__ count: Elements in 2nd Row = 3 number of dimensions =2 total elements in array:ar1=5` [download]	[reply] [d/l]