Hello Monks! I would like to know if someone has some idea how I could design the following in a nicer way:

I would like to build a data structure which is conceptually like a matrix, but where the rows and columns are identified by keys (like a hash). Actually, the columns are identified by various kinds of our platform, and the rows by properties of these platforms. For example, the element in column 'R-Solaris', row 'scriptpath', would be a path of directories containing scripts on platform of type R-Solaris, while the element in column 'R-Linux', row 'confdir', would be the path of some configuration directory used on systems of type R-Linux.

One obvious way to implement it would be to build a nested hash, like this: 

my $conf = {
 scriptpath => {
   R-Solaris => '....',
   R-Linux => '....',
   UNC-Windows => '....',
   ...
 },
 confdir => {
   R-Solaris => '....',
   R-Linux => '....',
   UNC-Windows => '....',
   ...
 },
 ...
}

[download]
This is certainly possible, but I don't like it very much, because it obsures the fact that we have a "matrix" (it's not obvious for the reader that every contained hash must have the same set of keys.

I was thinking of a variation of this solution in that I still use the data structure as outlined above, but don't construct it "statically", but with the help of constructor functions: 

my $conf={};
sub conf {
  $conf{$_[0]}={
    R-Solaris => $_[1],
    R-Linux => $_[2],
    UNC-Windows => $_[3],
    ...
  }
}
conf('scriptpath','...',...);
conf('confdir',........);

[download]
This has the advantage that it not only becomes obvious, that the data is structured like a matrix, but that I can even check that the number of parameters is the correct one. Still, this looks to me like "too much code" for such a seamingly simple problem.

Of course those style questions are always are matter of personal taste, but if someone would solve this in a different way, I would like to see some alternative.

-- 
Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>

In reply to "Hash Matrix" Design Question by rovf

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