Foreach loop not looping?!

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

I must be doing something incredibly stupid, but my foreach loop isn't working correctly.

print Dumper(@orders);

print "\n\n";

foreach (@orders)
{

    print Dumper($_);

    die();

}
[download]

In both the dumps the exact same array is being given back. So it doesn't seem to be splitting it up, just regurgitating it back to me. Anybody have any idea why?

Comment on Foreach loop not looping?! Download Code

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Re: Foreach loop not looping?! by almut (Canon) on Oct 09, 2008 at 14:19 UTC
Your first dump probably should've been (note the backslash) `print Dumper(\@orders);` [download] If you pass an array (instead of an array ref) to `Dumper`, its individual elements are being dumped, which effectively produces the same output as your explicit looping...	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Foreach loop not looping?! by rjberry (Novice) on Oct 09, 2008 at 14:43 UTC
Ah right, thanks. I've done that but the output hasn't changed at all. I think this is something to do with @orders being taken from XML::Simple, which is apparently a pain in the arse for looping.	[reply]
Re^3: Foreach loop not looping?! by almut (Canon) on Oct 09, 2008 at 15:08 UTC
...but the output hasn't changed at all. Seems hard to believe :) At least, a pair of outer brackets should've been added to the dump. Otherwise, it all depends on what exactly your `@orders` array contains (one or more elements, etc.). Perhaps showing some sample dumps (stripped down) would help shed light on what's going on...	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Foreach loop not looping?! by moritz (Cardinal) on Oct 09, 2008 at 14:20 UTC
If your arrays `@orders` contains just one item that is a hash ref you'll get that behaviour. With arrays I always use `print Dumper(\@array);` for clarity.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Foreach loop not looping?! by GrandFather (Saint) on Oct 09, 2008 at 20:56 UTC
How about you show us a real sample that we can actually run and that shows the problem you are having in the output? If the first and only element in @orders were a reference to an array then what you describe is exactly what I would expect to see. Maybe there is a bug elsewhere in the code that we can't see and your expectations of the content of the orders array are wrong? Perl reduces RSI - it saves typing	[reply]
Re: Foreach loop not looping?! by injunjoel (Priest) on Oct 10, 2008 at 01:50 UTC
Does anyone else find the `die();` statement strange? -InjunJoel "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo	[reply] [d/l]