Now I understand KM's point in the more general example, but in the specific case that started this thread, I'd like to suggest that Fastolfe's use of a simple array could get you the same readability as a hash, as the keys you need are always natural numbers. The matter of the zero-based array is handled by tossing in an unshift(@array,'');, following the read, after which $array[5] really refers to line 5 of the original file (and I also note that despite its good looks, using '05' as a hash key isn't going to help future maintainability).

Another benefit is simpler printing:

print @array;                             # gives the same result as:
print qq{$hash{$_}} for sort keys %hash;  # this

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My conclusion (for now ;-): arrays are easier when your keys are always going to be sequential integers.

In reply to Re: Reading file into a numbered hash\b\b\b\barray\b\b\b\b\bhash\b\b\b\barray by Albannach
in thread Reading file into a numbered hash by KM

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