Slicing Hash References

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

I'm trying to use the array slice mechanism. This code

  my %a=('a',1,'b',2,'c',3);
  print for @a{'a','b'};

work fine. However

  my $a={'a',1,'b',2,'c',3};
  print for @a->{'a','b'};

spits out the error message

  Can't coerce array into hash

The quick solution is, of course, to dereference the hash ref into a temporary variable before slicing:

  my $a={'a',1,'b',2,'c',3};
  my %a=%$a;
  print for @a{'a','b'};

Somehow this seems ugly. So does anyone know how I can use the arrow operator to get a hash slice directly from the reference without the need for a temporary.

Comment on Slicing Hash References

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Re: Slicing Hash References by mirod (Canon) on Mar 01, 2001 at 16:52 UTC
You might want to use: `my $a={'a',1,'b',2,'c',3}; print for @$a{'a','b'}; # note the extra $` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Slicing Hash References by Tyke (Pilgrim) on Mar 01, 2001 at 17:14 UTC
Thankyou good Sir. That's what I was looking for! I've been working with `->` too long to see such a simple solution ;}	[reply] [d/l]