Converting an index record array into a comma-separated array.

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

I have an array, say i'm stepping through a debugger and the first two elements look like:

1 ARRAY(0x4779c0)
  0 'IBM'
  1 'B'
  2 226110
  3 22020702
  4 545
  5 12.5109
2 ARRAY(0x477a68)
  0 'AOL'
  1 'B'
  2 '4RK11709'
  3 20020702
  4 3455
  5 81.3588
[download]

So now I wanted to convert it into something that you would access using the foreach and split statements, so again if i were going through the debugger and wanted to see it, this is the format i would want it to be in:

0  'IBM,B,226110,20020702,545,12.5109'
1  'AOL,B,4RK11709,20020702,3455,12.5109'
[download]

How would you convert from the indexed-record array to the comma-separated array? Thanks in advance, Brent.

Comment on Converting an index record array into a comma-separated array. Select or Download Code

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(jeffa) Re: Converting an index record array into a comma-separated array. by jeffa (Bishop) on Jul 15, 2002 at 15:22 UTC
join is the opposite of split: `my @a = qw(IBM B 226110 20020702 545 12.5109); @a = join(',',@a); print "@a\n";` [download] ~~But i usually store the results in a scalar, not an array, because join returns a scalar.~~ Update: i did not realize you were working with an array of arrays when i answered ... sorry about that. jeffa L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L-- -R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B-- H---H---H---H---H---H--- (the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Converting an index record array into a comma-separated array. by japhy (Canon) on Jul 15, 2002 at 15:41 UTC
The simplest approach is: `$_ = join ',' => @$_ for @array;` Or, written less idiomatically: `for my $e (@array) { $e = join ",", @$e; }` [download] _____________________________________________________ Jeff`[japhy]`Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area) `s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Converting an index record array into a comma-separated array. by krujos (Curate) on Jul 15, 2002 at 15:21 UTC
you could do something like `foreach $element (@array) { $var = $var . $element . ","; }` [download] The dot operator appends, just like the + in java on strings. My example would give you an extra comma, but you could remove it with `$array[@array -1]="";` [download] update added the part about the extra comma	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Converting an index record array into a comma-separated array. by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jul 15, 2002 at 15:49 UTC
`$array[@array -1]="";` [download] doesn't remove a trailing comma. What it does is replacing the last element of the array with an empty string. It's much better to not use an explicite loop, but to use `join`. Then you don't have to remove any trailing commas either. Abigail	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Converting an index record array into a comma-separated array. by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jul 15, 2002 at 15:53 UTC
Something like: #! perl -w use strict; use Data::Dumper; my @AoA = ( [ 'IBM','B', 226110, 22020702, 545 , 12.5109 ], [ 'AOL', 'B', '4RK11709', 20020702, 3455, 81.3588 ] ); my @AoS; for (0..1) { $AoS[$_] = join ',', @{$AoA[$_]} ; } print "Before\n", Dumper @AoA; print "After\n", Dumper @AoS; __DATA__ #output C:\test>181810 Before $VAR1 = [ 'IBM', 'B', 226110, 22020702, 545, '12.5109' ]; $VAR2 = [ 'AOL', 'B', '4RK11709', 20020702, 3455, '81.3588' ]; After $VAR1 = 'IBM,B,226110,22020702,545,12.5109'; $VAR2 = 'AOL,B,4RK11709,20020702,3455,81.3588'; [download]	[reply] [d/l]
(jeffa) 2Re: Converting an index record array into a comma-separated array. by jeffa (Bishop) on Jul 15, 2002 at 16:09 UTC
Here is a good place for map instead of for: `my @AoS = map {join ',',@$_} @AoA;` [download] jeffa L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L-- -R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B-- H---H---H---H---H---H--- (the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)	[reply] [d/l]