The 'problem' I'm trying to solve (probably trivial, but not for me):

A database query returns results like:
DayOfWeekProductionLineOutput
2 CANNING 18353
2 MULTIPACK 14878
2 QUEST 911
3 CANNING 46775
3 MULTIPACK42601
3 QUEST 1564
4 CANNING 81302
4 MULTIPACK 67542
4 QUEST 1879

These are presented to the rest of my script as $results[0], $results1 and $results2.

Ultimately I want to get this data into several arrays
@dayofweek, which would contain ('2', '3', '4')
@canning, which would contain ('18353', '46775' etc)
@multipack and @quest (I'm sure you get the picture).

Then I think I can do @data_to_plot = ( [@dayofweek], [@canning], [@multipack], [@quest] ); which I can happily feed into GD::Graph to get a pretty graph drawn for me.

I could achieve what I need to by doing three separate queries of the database and pushing results into a separate array each time. Or a lot of if, elsif, else pattern matching. Indeed the former is what I'm currently doing. However I'm sure there is a 'better' way.

A way, but I am led to understand a bad way, of achieving this would be to try and push the Output figure, $results2, for each line of results into an array which has as it's name the value of the Production Line, $results1. I think this is possible, though I haven't managed to work out the syntax (despite a good look through Chapter 9, Data Structures, of Programming Perl). However in searching online for an example of the syntax I came across a copy of a newsgroup post about why naming variables with other variables is a bad idea.

Thus I have journeyed to prostrate myself before the gates of the Monastery to ask for any drops of wisdom that a passing monk might care to pass my way.

2mths - Thoroughly depressed at his lack of understanding and seeming inability to rectify the situation.

In reply to Variables as a variable name... (I know you shouldn't but...) by 2mths

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