in reply to Matching a KEY in a HASH

You want to match a key based on a substring? and print all values that match? You can use the Tie::Hash mentioned above or just to match a substring you can do... 
for(keys %category) {
  print "$category{$_}\n" if /\Q$variable\E/i;
}

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the \Q \E makes sure that you match the characters in $variable the way they are, (other a \ could screw you all up, or a . or a *, etc) and the i at the end makes it case-insensitive (often good in substring matching). Does that help?
                - Ant

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Re: Re: Matching a KEY in a HASH
by SysAdm (Novice) on May 14, 2001 at 21:44 UTC
    Here's the code I'm currently using: 
    %category = (
    Anim => 'Animation Projects',
    Build => 'Building/Structural Projects',
    CAD => 'CAD/CAM Engineering Projects',
    );


    my $value;
              $value = (sort values %category);
    print "$value" if (exists($category{"$form{'USER_INPUT'}"})) ;

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    It prints EVERY $value instead of just the $value for the matching $form{'USER_INPUT'}.

    I hope my question is now clearer and makes more sense..
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[d/l]
      Yes, stop getting all the values, when all you want is one value. Use the code I've posted twice in this thread, as have others.

      -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[reply]
      Ummm, first things first... 
      $value = (sort values %category);

      [download]
      will store the last value of the sorted list of values in $value, this is most likely not what you want. You are looking to print the value of %category that the key matches $form{'USER_INPUT'}? then use.. 
      print $category{$form{'USER_INPUT'} if $category{$form{'USER_INPUT'};

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      do you just want the value of Anim if the user inputs Anim, or do you want Build AND CAD when the user inputs 'd'?
                      - Ant
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

      As merlyn said, looks like you are trying to grab all the 'values' with the $value = (sort values %category); statement.

      If you just use

      print "$category{$form{'USER_INPUT'}}"
   if exists $category{$form{'USER_INPUT'}};

      [download]

      everything should work fine. (At least it did for me... :)

      D a d d i o

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[d/l]
[select]
        Thanks!
        for everyone's help on this....

        It works great now...!

        _________SysAdm
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