As Biker points out above, there are no hard and fast limits imposed on nested data structures by the Perl subsystem, the real limits on these strucutres imposed by computer resources and developer sanity. However, an interesting point which I'd like to add to this discussion is the handling, both at the level of code and developer mindset, of circular references - That is nested data structures that contain references back to a higher level of the data structure, causing a loop in evaluation.

For example:

my @array;
@array = \@array; # ouch!

[download]

According to Dan Sugalski here, there is no clear-cut manner to handle circular references unless you have great knowledge of the expected data set - I'd be interested however in other monks' experiences and opinions on circular references within data structures and what methods they have used to either prevent or detect such structures.

 

perl -e 's&&rob@cowsnet.com.au&&&split/[@.]/&&s&.com.&_&&&print'

In reply to Re: How Far Can I Nest? by rob_au
in thread How Far Can I Nest? by Cody Pendant

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