From your statement of the problem, it sounds like all the codes are unique. That allows you to use a translation hash. Lets set one up starting with an Array-of-Arrays that is built directly from your data.

my @code_data = [
    ['US','USA','USD'],
# ...
];
my %translator = map { $_->[0] => $_,
                       $_->[1] => $_,
                       $_->[2] => $_ 
                     } @code_data;
use constant ccode => 0;
use conatant country => 1;
use constant currency => 2;
print $translator{USA}[currency];
print $translator{USD)[ccode];

[download]
You have a problem with the design which will make this construction fail as it is. What country is supposed to come back when you say $translator{EURO}[country]? Your question does not hold up on meeting real data.

The currency elements need to hash to an array. You may have other data with similar properties. It doesn't have to be painful, but it's not as simple as above:

# construct %translator as before, but only for unique keys
for (@code_data) {
    push @{$translator{$_->[currency]}}, $_;
}

[download]
That makes your lookups a little more complicated, but that is dictated by the problem domain.

After Compline,
Zaxo

In reply to Re: data structure problem by Zaxo
in thread data structure problem by Anonymous Monk

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.