G'day Sami_R,

"... set hash values to '-', is there any simplest way of implementing this, please."

You can assign to multiple keys at the same time using a hash slice (see "perldata: Slices"). You can assign multiple, identical values using the repetition operator (see "perlop: Multiplicative Operators").

As already pointed out, information from you is missing. The following code should give you an idea of a technique you might employ; of course, it's impossible to even suggest implementation details. 

$ perl -e '
    my @hashes;
    my @days = ([1,2,3], [], [], [4,5,6]);
    for (0 .. $#days) {
        my %x = (day => 1+$_);
        @x{qw{bal pay tot}}
            = @{$days[$_]} ? @{$days[$_]} : ("-") x 3;
        push @hashes, \%x;
    }
    use Data::Dump;
    dd \@hashes;
'
[
  { bal => 1, day => 1, pay => 2, tot => 3 },
  { bal => "-", day => 2, pay => "-", tot => "-" },
  { bal => "-", day => 3, pay => "-", tot => "-" },
  { bal => 4, day => 4, pay => 5, tot => 6 },
]

[download]

— Ken

In reply to Re: How to set hash values to '-' . by kcott
in thread How to set hash values to '-' . by Sami_R

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.