Hello Monks,

In the following program (perl cookbook recipe): 
use XML::RSS;

my $rss = XML::RSS->new;
$rss->parsefile($RSS_FILENAME);

my @items = @{$rss->{items}};
foreach my $item (@items) {
  print "title: $item->{'title'}\n";
  print "link: $item->{'link'}\n\n";
 }

[download]

I don't understand exactely what: 
my @items = @{$rss->{items}};

[download]

is and why the author is using: 
print "title: $item->{'title'}\n";
print "link: $item->{'link'}\n\n";

[download]

to obtain the values. I assume these are references of some kind but could someone explain the unusual syntax to me?

Thank you.

Alexa

In reply to Confused by RSS reader program. 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.