Monks,

Suppose one a subroutine and a scalar that contains the name of the subroutine. How does one call the subroutine based on the content of the scalar?

use strict;
use warnings;

sub foo {  print 'foo\n'; }
sub bar {  print 'bar\n'; }

my $var = 'foo';
# invoke sub foo 

__END__
[download]

Update Tue Apr 15 07:32:23 CEST 2008: What I am actually trying to do is this:

I intend to create a script that takes two files as arguments: A (CSV) data file, and a (Config::IniFiles) configuration file. The data file will look like this:

# col1;col2;col3;
123456;hey hey;2008-04-14
123457;my my;2008-04-15
[download]

The configuration file will look like this:

col1=is_int
col2=is_string
col3=is_yyyy_mm_dd_date
[download]

Each key in the configuration file refers to a column in the data file. Each value corresponds to a subroutine that returns true or false depending on whether the data passes validation or not. The list of validation functions grows quickly, and I was hoping to avoid having to maintain an ever-growing list of if-else expressions or a giant hash that maps each string expression to the given subroutine. I am aware of the security risks, although I believe there can be measures put in place to ensure that only pre-defined subroutine can be called.

Any tips or hints on how to otherwise solve this problem is welcome.

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