Hi

I am trying to create a structure which holds names and values which will later be translated into linux environment variables.

For example: $hash{VAR1}="me" will later turn into an environment variable called $VAR1 which value will be "me".

However, i would like to do it in a more sophisticated way where each variable has a priority. This way, i can decide that a certain variable will be created before the other.

I would like my structure to look something like: 

$hash{10}{VAR1}="me"
$hash{20}{VAR2}="you"

[download]
In this way, $VAR1 will be created before $VAR2.

My problem here is efficiany: during the program, i would like to run queries on this structure so i can know the value of a variable and it's priority.

For example: if my structure would be built in the way i described above, i could just run a statement like  if($hash{20}) { ... } to check if a priority i have given already exists, however, if i wanted to know the value of a variable, i would have to run a  foreach loop which would go through the whole hash inorder to find it.

If i build the structure as following:

$hash{VAR1}{priority}{value1}

It would be easier for me to get the value of the variable, or check if it already exists, however, if i would like to check if a priority exists, or if one priority is lower than another, i would have to go through the whole hash again to check it.

What would be your suggestion for building such a structure ?

Thanks

20040718 Janitored by Corion: Converted TR tags to P tags

In reply to a hash with priority by meirgold

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