Assuming that $href->{$dn}->{$mail} contains an array reference, then your choices are:

@{ $$href{dn}{mail} }; # or @{ $href->{dn}{mail} }; # or @{ $href->{dn}->{mail} };

to refer to the whole array and

$$href{$dn}{mail}[0]; # or $href->{dn}{mail}[0]; # or $href->{dn}->{mail}->[0]; ## yawn! :) # or ...

to refer to the individual elements.

However, there is a useful though slightly obscure way of simplifying the access to deeply nested structures without needing to copy data into temporary variables.

## Make the localised glob *mail ## act as an alias to the nested array { local *mail = $ref->{dn}{mail}; print @mail; ## Print the whole array print $mail[0]; ## The first element } ## *mail reverts to it's old value here.

It's especially useful when you have to do a whole bunch of accesses to the elements of some deeply nested structureal element.


Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail
"Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algoritm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon

In reply to Re: Reference Notation by BrowserUk
in thread Reference Notation by Anonymous Monk

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