As far as identifying them goes, you could grep your files for ${%{$ . That sequence of characters isn't likely to show up anywhere else except in these constructs.

Automating a change would be more tricky, but could probably be done. Something like this which you could filter all problem files through:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict; use warnings;

while(<DATA>){
  print "before: $_";;
  s|\${%{\$(\w+)}}{'(\w+)'}|\$${1}->{'$2'}|g;
  print " after: $_";;
  }

__DATA__
my $lValue = ${%{$lHashRef}}{'a'};
[download]

That might not work on all your variable names or if some are formatted a bit differently, but it could be a start.

That might not work on all your variable names or if some are formatted a bit differently ...

In particular, note that it's possible to go a little nuts with whitespace and the Perl compiler still calmly accepts it. That, and the same basic extinct syntax also works with arrays and array references, which KANAKADANDI has never said are not present in the code.

c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -le
"print qq{perl version $]};
 ;;
 my @ra = qw(a b c d);
 my $ar = \@ra;
 print ${       ra   }[2];
 print ${     @ ra   }[2];
 print ${     $ ar   }[2];
 print ${ @    $ar   }[2];
 print ${ @ { $ ar } }[2];
 ;;
 my %h  = qw(a aye  b bee  c see);
 my $hr = \%h;
 print ${       h    }{b};
 print ${     % h    }{b};
 print ${     $ hr   }{b};
 print ${ %    $hr   }{b};
 print ${ % { $ hr } }{b};
"
perl version 5.008009
c
c
c
c
c
bee
bee
bee
bee
bee
[download]

Another point I would make is that a search for these extinct forms should be based on a rigorous definition of a Perl identifier (insofar as one can be defined in user code):
    my $identifier = qr{ \b [[:alpha:]_] \w* \b }xms;
(or that's my first cut, anyway — but it doesn't cover "fully qualified" identifiers). See Variable names in perldata.

I think the best automated search-and-replace is still going to need a final manual patching pass running with strictures enabled, which I sure hope KANAKADANDI is able to do!

---

Give a man a fish:  <%-(-(-(-<

Definitely. My goal with automation in a case like this would be to save as much typing as possible, but I'd still expect to have to test and review the edits manually. Also, I'd keep my regex fairly tight, even if that means it misses some due to unexpected formatting differences. Better to miss a few and have to edit those manually than to have it start replacing things I don't expect.

Aaron B.
Available for small or large Perl jobs and *nix system administration; see my home node.

extinct forms

Hmm, never tested for, never documented, actually goes against the documentation ... most mutations die off :)

thanks a lot for the answers. So i would take it as there is no settings that would enable me to work with my existing Perl scripts without changing them. I would appreciate if someone could suggest me if there is an easy to identify the programs which have these symbolic references. I appreciate your help.

See references quick reference and use the syntax that is documented to be valid, all other syntax isn't even if it happened to work on somehow at sometime

suggest me if there is an easy to identify the programs which have these symbolic references.