Hi All (again),
  Sorry for all the messages today. I've got a deadline that has made me put in some stupid hours and my brain has stopped functioning properly :s
I've got a variable update form that is generated based on a hash reference called $Config. The submitted data comes in similar to what is shown below:-

my %inputdata = (
                 'Config->{blah}->{hat}' => "splat",
                 'Config->{cat}->[0]' => "doh",
                 'Config->{cat}->[1]' => "ray",
                );
[download]

Now if I want to load this data it's easy with eval:-

my $evaltext;
foreach my $key (keys %inputdata) {
    $evaltext .= "\$$key = qq~$inputdata{$key}~;\n";
}#foreach
eval $evaltext;
[download]

But I don't like eval's overhead, so I usually try to avoid it. The problem is in doing so I've ended up with some really stupid code.. that works, but surely isn't the best way to do it:-

foreach my $key (keys %inputdata) {
    my @keys = split(/->/, $key);
#    if ($#keys == 0) {
#        ${$keys[0]} = $inputdata{$key};
#    }#if
    if ($#keys == 1) {
        if ($keys[1] =~ /\{/) {
            $keys[1] =~ s/(\{|\})//g;
            ${$keys[0]}->{$keys[1]} = $inputdata{$key};
        }#if
        if ($keys[1] =~ /\[/) {
            $keys[1] =~ s/(\[|\])//g;
            ${$keys[0]}->[$keys[1]] = $inputdata{$key};
        }#if
    }#if
    if ($#keys == 2) {
        if ($keys[1] =~ /\{/) {
            $keys[1] =~ s/(\{|\})//g;
            if ($keys[2] =~ /\{/) {
                $keys[2] =~ s/(\{|\})//g;
                ${$keys[0]}->{$keys[1]}->{$keys[2]} = $inputdata{$key}
+;
            }#if
            if ($keys[2] =~ /\[/) {
                $keys[2] =~ s/(\[|\])//g;
                ${$keys[0]}->{$keys[1]}->[$keys[2]] = $inputdata{$key}
+;
            }#if
        }#if
        if ($keys[1] =~ /\[/) {
            $keys[1] =~ s/(\[|\])//g;
            if ($keys[2] =~ /\{/) {
                $keys[2] =~ s/(\{|\})//g;
                ${$keys[0]}->[$keys[1]]->{$keys[2]} = $inputdata{$key}
+;
            }#if
            if ($keys[2] =~ /\[/) {
                $keys[2] =~ s/(\[|\])//g;
                ${$keys[0]}->[$keys[1]]->[$keys[2]] = $inputdata{$key}
+;
            }#if
        }#if
    }#if    
}#foreach
[download]

It would also quickly break and need to be updated if the data structure became deeper. Feels like brain it's up my a** at the moment, could someone give me a clout and point me onto the right way to do it?

Thanks

Lyle

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