in reply to merging two fields of data into one hash or array

As f00li5h pointed out, the best approach would be to use a templating module.

To pick up where he left off and provide an example of how you can use split to separate your input data, I submit the following code: 

use strict;
use warnings;

my $_mergeFields = "##fname##;##lname##;##email##;##phone##;";

my $_list_to_send_to = "Richard;Smith;myemail\@testmail.com;8005551212
+;|Toby;Johnson;email2\@testmail.com;8885551212|Chanty;Perkins;another
+\@test.com;8665551212;";

my $_message = qq~
Hello ##fname## how are you today? Hopefully your day is going well. I
+ am the list server for some company, blah blah blah, and I have list
+ed your phone number as ##phone##. Well, here is all the data I have 
+for you:

Name: ##fname## ##lname##
Phone: ##phone##
email: ##email##

So I just wanted to say thank you for signing up yesterday to get emai
+ls from us, and if you don't want to receive any more just click the 
+link below and we won't send any more out. blah blah ~;

my @fields = split( ';', $_mergeFields );
my @recipients = split( '\|', $_list_to_send_to );

foreach my $recipient ( @recipients )
{
    my @recip_data = split( ';', $recipient );
    my $recip_msg = $_message;

    foreach my $field ( @fields )
    {
        my $value = shift @recip_data;
        $recip_msg =~ s/$field/$value/g;
    }

    print $recip_msg, "\n\n";
}

[download]

Note: Don't use this in production - use a templating module.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: merging two fields of data into one hash or array
by f00li5h (Chaplain) on Mar 24, 2007 at 05:01 UTC

    I'm more of a fan of stuffing the customer info into a hash

    the stuff in <readmore> tags is not as interesting

    Read more... (628 Bytes)
    # trim the # marks 
$_mergeFields =~ s/#//g;
# list of field names                  
my @field_names = split ';', $_mergeFields;
# list of lines from the data
my @records     = split /[|]/, $_list_to_send_to;

my $template = q[

    [download]
    Read more... (345 Bytes)
    ];
foreach( @records ) {
    my $message = $template;

    # hash to fill with customer information
    my %customer_record;

    # use a hash slice to populate it, 
    #  we now have keys fname lname email and phone
    @customer_record{ @field_names } = split ';', $_ ;

    # neat, a one line templating engine.
    $message =~ s/##$_##/$customer_record{$_}/g for keys %customer_rec
+ord;

    send_spam $customer_record{email}, $message;

}

    [download]
    @_=qw; ask f00li5h to appear and remain for a moment of pretend better than a lifetime;;s;;@_[map hex,split'',B204316D8C2A4516DE];;y/05/os/&print;

    Update

    1. I won't ever use <readmore> tags for code folding again
    2. It's nice that my answer is in some way related to the question, as well as TIMTOWTDI
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