You can't do it with lexical (my) variables. Symbolic references only work with variables that reside in the symbol table (which lexicals don't). Here's an example:

( $a, $b, $c ) = ( 10, 20, 30 );


$want = 'a';

print $$want, "\n";
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In your eample, you're treating lexicals as if they have symbolic entries in the global symbol table. They just don't. So when you print *{$want}, you're not actually accessing the lexical, $client.

Ah. simple when you know how. I had tried $$want, but as I always use lexical variables is hadn't worked. Thanks

You're talking about symbolic references. The syntax you are looking for is just like that for real references.

$c = 'foo';
$want = 'c';
print $$want, $/;
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Is there any reason or benefit to prefering

print $$want, $/;
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over

print $$want, "\n";
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I find myself tacking "\n" on the end of prints more often then I think I should.
Just wondering if there's a better way.

Only minor advantages. It's two fewer keystrokes and it makes output conform to the current input record seperator, which is sometimes good to ensure.

Mainly, it's one of my coding habits. I formed it under the superstition that it's more platform neutral. That's not really true, but the minor advantages win for a habit I've already got.

The truly handy way to stop fussing with newlines is to set local $\ = "\n"; and know that all distinct prints in that scope will get newlines appended.

$ perl -e'local $\ = $/; print for qw/foo bar baz/'
foo
bar
baz
$
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After Compline,
Zaxo

I know better ways...

I invite you to read mjd's note on Why it's stupid to use a variable as a variable name.

The code (not mine) is badly structured and has other problems so I will get it changed. But ignorance is always dumber than knowledge and I didn't know the answer to the question I was asked. Now I do. So no the question wasn't stupid and as you now know the answer too, you too are a little less dumb then you were.

use strict;
use warnings;

my (%hash, $want);

@hash{qw/a b c/} = (1, 2, 3);
$want = 'c';

print $hash{$want};
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use strict;
use warnings;

my (%hash, @keys, @vals, $want);

@keys = qw/a b c/;
@vals = (1, 2, 3);

@hash{@keys} = (@vals);
$want = 'c';

print $hash{$want};
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