Beginners question: assigning a variable as the name of a hash

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

Say I have three variables:

$name = 'hash1'
$key = 'key1'
$keyvalue = 'keyvalue1'
[download]

How would I write the equivalent of the line below using the variables (i.e. something like: %($name)<br>=$key=>$keyvalue )

%hash1 = key1=>'keyvalue1'
[download]

Thanks!

janitored by ybiC: Minor format cleanup, including balanced <code> tags around code snippets

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Re: Beginners question: assigning a variable as the name of a hash by ikegami (Patriarch) on Apr 22, 2005 at 19:41 UTC
`# Doesn't delete anything else in the %{$data{$name}} $data{$name}{$key} = $keyvalue; # Erases everything else in the %{$data{$name}}. %{$data{$name}} = ( $key => $keyvalue );` [download] It's bad to actually create variable dynamically. (You can see the reason for that here.) That's why I'm not creating a variable named %hash1. Rather, I created %data which hold %hash1 and any other hashes you wish to create dynamically.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Beginners question: assigning a variable as the name of a hash by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Apr 22, 2005 at 19:44 UTC
You don't want to name your variables with strings contained in other variables. It sounds like you want a hash of hashes. `my %datastore; $datastore{ $name }{ $key } = $keyvalue;` [download] Update: Fixed typo as per japhy's reply. My wife's blog	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Beginners question: assigning a variable as the name of a hash by japhy (Canon) on Apr 22, 2005 at 21:44 UTC
You meant `my %datastore;`. _____________________________________________________ Jeff `japhy` Pinyan, P.L., P.M., P.O.D, X.S.: Perl, regex, and `perl` hacker How can we ever be the sold short or the cheated, we who for every service have long ago been overpaid? ~~ Meister Eckhart	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Beginners question: assigning a variable as the name of a hash by tlm (Prior) on Apr 22, 2005 at 19:48 UTC
What you're trying to do involves symbolic references, which is probably not a good idea. Anyway, it's this: `{ no strict 'refs'; %$name = ( $key => $keyvalue ); }` [download] Note that I have switched off `strict` in a narrow enclosing scope; make sure you use it everywhere else. You should definitely read this series. the lowliest monk	[reply] [d/l]