Why not just: 
use constant FILE_NAME => 3;

# ...

unless ( -d $parms[FILE_NAME] ) {
#
# do some ftp stuff here.
#
}

[download]
Gives you compile-time checks and has all the advantages of the hash solution.

In reply to Re^2: Perl record types by plobsing
in thread Perl record types by naveed010

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