in reply to getting hashes out of config files

Assuming "foo.dat" is the file which consists of what Data::Dumper stored, AND that "%hash" is the name of the hash defined in that file, all you need to do is 
use strict;
use vars '%hash';
do('foo.dat');

[download]
And the hash should be set. I point out the use strict and use vars because I was bitten just yesterday by the problem that since the data resides in a separate file, do(file) doesn't work well with lexical variables (those created with my). See perlfunc:do for more info, and thanks to merlyn, dchetlin, and tye for helping sort me out on this issue.

(Oh yeah, and check the file Data::Dumper created to make sure it defines '%hash')

Philosophy can be made out of anything. Or less -- Jerry A. Fodor

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: RE: getting hashes out of config files
by Anonymous Monk on Oct 25, 2000 at 22:31 UTC
    that works nicely, except for one problem:

    do('$filename');

    doesn't seem to work, however if i type the path and file instead of using $filename variable it works ... is there a way to use the $filename variable with the do function?

    it tend to be much more usefull to use a variable ... its a lot sorter thanks in advance
[reply]
      You're using single quotes, which do not do variable interpolation. Thus, you are attempting to open the file named $filename (literally). Remove the quotes entirely, as they're unnecessary, or use double-quotes, which will correctly do interpolation: 
      do($filename)   or die "...";
do("$filename") or die "...";

      [download]
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
        double quotes and no quotes yield the same result as single quotes ... i have been using hte following to test: 
        do('filename');
%hashname = %$VAR1;

print "$hashname{name} \n\n";

###the above works fine
###the code below only prints the \n's
$filename = "filename";
do($filename);
%hashname = %$VAR1;

print "$hashname{name} \n\n";

        [download]
        thanks again
[reply]
[d/l]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom