mr. jaggers has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Okay, I have an array of hashes, each corresponding to a file. Each hash has a key for a string (filename), the filehandle, and some other comma delimited data.

Dumper prints each hash like: 
$VAR1 = {
          'fn' => 'test3.dat',
          'no' => [
                    '0',
                    '1',
                    '2',
                    '3'
                  ],
          'fh' => bless( \*Symbol::GEN2, 'IO::File' ),
          'oo' => [
                    '1',
                    '2',
                    '4',
                    '8'
                  ]
        };

[download]
I do some stuff for a while, and then at the end I want to close these filehandles.

So, if my array is $files, then I try:
foreach (@files)
  {
    $_{fh}->close;
  }

[download]
So, I run the script and perl says: 
Can't call method "close" on an undefined value at test.pl line 62.

[download]
So, I replace the block with a print Dumper($_{fh}); which then claims that the value is 'undef'.
???
Where did it go?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Filehandle in hash value gets lost
by batkins (Chaplain) on Dec 20, 2002 at 02:37 UTC
    perhaps they go away when you "do some stuff." :)

    a little more code might help.

[reply]
      :P sorry about that... actually it was stupid and I solved it myself five minutes after posting (I already said in a post that I'm an idiot...).

      Actually, I needed to: 
      foreach (@files)
  {
    $_->{fh}->close;
  }

      [download]
      and that basically took care of it, but it looks pretty ugly to me. But then again, I am just learning perl (my resident guru says I still "speak perl with a C accent"). ...sigh... Well, at least I'm trying!
[reply]
[d/l]

        To make it look more pretty try:

        foreach my $file (@files) {
  $file->{fh}->close();
}

        [download]

        Update: Changed close to close() to improve readability.

[reply]
[d/l]
        ah, it's all good.
[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom