hash element as file handle

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

What's wrong with this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my %files;
while (<DATA>) {
    $_=~/^(\w+): (\d) (\w+)/;
    unless ($files{$1}) { open $files{$1}, ">$1.tmp" || die "Couldn't 
+open $1.txt...\n"; }
    print $files{$1} "$2 $3\n"; #  No dice! (syntax error)
}
[download]

The files do get created. I tried IO::File to create the handle but it is the same deal; I've used scalars this way before so way not a hash element?

Comment on hash element as file handle Download Code

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Re: hash element as file handle by jwkrahn (Abbot) on Mar 28, 2009 at 19:42 UTC
Change that to: `my %files; while ( <DATA> ) { next unless /^(\w+): (\d) (\w+)/; unless ( fileno $files{ $1 } ) { open $files{ $1 }, '>', "$1.tmp" or die "Couldn't open $1.txt. +..\n"; } print { $files{ $1 } } "$2 $3\n"; }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: hash element as file handle by halfcountplus (Hermit) on Mar 28, 2009 at 19:53 UTC
print { $files{$1} } works, as does using a temp scalar (my $tmp = $files{$1}; print $tmp "...). Thanks!	[reply]
Re: hash element as file handle by FunkyMonk (Bishop) on Mar 28, 2009 at 23:37 UTC
There's always print's documentation: Note that if you're storing FILEHANDLEs in an array, or if you're using any other expression more complex than a scalar variable to retrieve it, you will have to use a block returning the filehandle value instead: `print { $files[$i] } "stuff\n"; print { $OK ? STDOUT : STDERR } "stuff\n";` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: hash element as file handle by trwww (Priest) on Mar 29, 2009 at 18:43 UTC
Hello, You can always use object notation, too: `$files{$1}->print("$2 $3\n")` regards,	[reply] [d/l]