scalar symbolic reference to variables

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

I am coding a cgi which drops anchors to the htmlcode.
currently I have one line code for each letter of the
alphabet. I'd like to put those 26 lines in one single
loop.

As the perlbook says that:

$name="bam";
$$name=1;   # Sets $bam
[download]

I tried the following:

$name=chr(97);
$$name=1;   # shall set $a bot doesn't
[download]

What have I to do to let that set the variables
indicated by chr()?
--
there are no silly questions
killerhippy

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Re: scalar symbolic reference to variables by joealba (Hermit) on May 24, 2002 at 16:26 UTC
Is there a good reason why you're using symbolic refs? You can almost always use a hash in any place where symbolic refs are used -- and the hash is almost always better form. Plus in this case, a hash would resolve the problem that Joost mentions about setting the sort vars $a and $b. Update: I use the word "almost" just to cover myself. My real belief is that using a hash is ALWAYS the best choice, but I know someone would come up with an argument. :) Update 2: This will set up a hash of letters for ya, although it's not really clear from your post how you plan to use the values. `my %letters = map {$_,1} (a..z);`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: scalar symbolic reference to variables by Joost (Canon) on May 24, 2002 at 16:02 UTC
`$name=chr(97); $$name=1; # shall set $a to 1 print "$$name\n"; print "$a\n";` [download] results in: `1 1` [download] so it DOES work. But don't use $a and $b, they're used by `sort`. see `perldoc -f sort perldoc perlvar` [download] Actually, you almost never need symbolic references at all.... `-- Joost downtime n. The period during which a system is error-free and immune from user input.` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: scalar symbolic reference to variables by khippy (Scribe) on May 24, 2002 at 17:32 UTC
Silly me misinterpreted the output of my testsnippet, so fool me for that ;) Thanx to all answers especially Joost warning about using $a ! To tell the whole story read this: I am working on a cgi producing a two framed set. the left frame is showing a dynamically list of links, which should be anchored to jump to the letter you want by clicking on a link at the right frame. so here's what I experimented with: `for $loop (1 .. $last_id) { for $count ( 97 .. 122) { $bla=chr($count); if ( ($list[1+($loop-1)*2]=~/^$bla/i) and (! $$bla) ) { $$bla="<a name=\"$bla\"></a>\n"; print $$bla; } } }` [download] I intend to puplish the whole code when it's finished an working. It is a database for managing your video-cds. -- there are no silly questions killerhippy	[reply] [d/l]
Re: scalar symbolic reference to variables by BUU (Prior) on May 24, 2002 at 15:59 UTC
dunno, this: `$x=chr(97); $$x=1; print $a;` [download] prints 1 for me, so dunno. But is there something wrong with using an array? or mebbe a hash.. `@chars=map{chr$_}(97..123)`	[reply] [d/l] [select]