shilpam has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I want to construct an array like 
$a = "fruits";
$b = "birds";
$c = "p";
$d = "g";
$e = "c";

@array1[$a][$c]="peach";
@array1[$a][$d]="grapes";
@array1[$b][$c]="parrot";
@array1[$b][$e]="crow";

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How can I construct this kind of array? Also how do I access the data easily?
Or should I use some other data type?

20040728 Edit by ysth: remove <BR>'s from within code tags

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Re: multi dimension array
by davido (Cardinal) on Jul 28, 2004 at 06:11 UTC

    You are talking about a hash (otherwise known as an associative array). Here's an example of the Perlish way to construct an associative array similar to what you're depicting. 

    use Data::Dumper;
my %world = ( 'fruits' => { 
                            'p' => 'peach',
                            'g' => 'grapes',
                          }
              'birds'  => { 
                            'p' => 'parrot',
                            'c' => 'crow'
                          }
             );

print Dumper \%world;
print "Accessing individual elements:\n";
print $world{'fruits'}{'p'}, "\n";
print $world{'birds'}{'c'}, "\n";

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    Please refer to perldata and perlintro for starters, to learn about hashes. For multidimensional structures you'll need to read perlreftut, perllol, and perlref. Enjoy! It's good stuff.


    Dave

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Re: multi dimension array
by ccn (Vicar) on Jul 28, 2004 at 06:13 UTC

    You should use HoH (a Hash of Hashes) 

    my %HoH;
$a = "fruits";
$b = "birds";
$c = "p";
$d = "g";
$e = "c";
$HoH{$a}{$c}="peach";
$HoH{$a}{$d}="grapes";
$HoH{$b}{$c}="parrot";
$HoH{$b}{$e}="crow";

foreach my $k (keys %HoH) {
   foreach my $j (keys %{$HoH{$k}}) {
     print "\$HoH{$k}{$j} = $HoH{$k}{$j}\n";
   }
}

    [download]

    see perlreftut

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[d/l]

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