NICE! That's even simpler than what I was expecting. :-D

Thanks for the help.

So, the values of the hash are a list separated by semicolons (just because I picked semicolons for the delimiter in my input text file). I need to put the list of values into an array, so I can use them to build my SQL statements. Sort of like this:

# Maybe I can do this as part of the original parsing?
# Or maybe I can loop over the %config hash and convert 
# the scalar values to an array, and put a reference 
# to that array back into the hash?

@inc_albums=split(/; /, $inc_albums) unless $inc_albums=~/^\s$/;
@inc_genres=split(/; /, $inc_genres) unless $inc_genres=~/^\s$/;
@inc_artists=split(/; /, $inc_artists) unless $inc_artists=~/^\s$/;
@inc_songs=split(/; /, $inc_songs) unless $inc_songs=~/^\s$/;
@exc_albums=split(/; /, $exc_albums) unless $exc_albums=~/^\s$/;
@exc_genres=split(/; /, $exc_genres) unless $exc_genres=~/^\s$/;
@exc_artists=split(/; /, $exc_artists) unless $exc_artists=~/^\s$/;
@exc_songs=split(/; /, $exc_songs) unless $exc_songs=~/^\s$/;

my $i_albumcriteria=q{(Songs.Album LIKE '%'||}.join(q{||'%' OR Songs.A
+lbum LIKE '%'||},map {"?"} @inc_albums).q{||'%')} unless (scalar(@inc
+_albums)==0) ;
my $i_artistcriteria=q{(Songs.Artist LIKE '%'||}.join(q{||'%' OR Songs
+.Artist LIKE '%'||},map {"?"} @inc_artists).q{||'%')} unless (scalar(
+@inc_artists)==0);
my $i_songcriteria=q{(Songs.SongTitle LIKE '%'||}.join(q{||'%' OR Song
+s.SongTitle LIKE '%'||},map {"?"} @inc_songs).q{||'%')} unless (scala
+r(@inc_songs)==0);
my $i_genrecriteria=q{(Songs.Genre LIKE '%'||}.join(q{||'%' OR Songs.G
+enre LIKE '%'||},map {"?"} @inc_genres).q{||'%')} unless (scalar(@inc
+_genres)==0);
my $i_ratingcriteria=qq{Songs.Rating $inc_ratings} unless length($inc_
+ratings)<2;
my $i_datecriteria=qq{Songs.Year $inc_year} unless length($inc_year)<2
+;

[download]

I'm now trying to work out how to either do this while I'm parsing the input text the first time around, or by looping over the %confighash recommended by ig. I could use a little bit more help on this.

EDIT

I think I got it ...

foreach my $k (keys %config) {
    $config{$k}=[split(/; /, $config{$k})] unless $config{$k}=~/^\s$/;
}

[download]

Thanks again for the help.

In reply to Re^2: Changing variable names in a loop by Mad_Mac
in thread Changing variable names in a loop by Mad_Mac

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