"Globbing" over variable names in Perl?

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

Esteemed Monks -

Here is my humble question for the day: Perl permits to access variables whose names were created in some (possibly systematic) way in the way illustrated in the following example.

Example:

perl -le '$a1 = 3; $a2 = 4; $c = 2; print ${a . $c}'
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returns the correct output '4'.

So here's my question: How can I obtain the list of all variables whose name matches a certain pattern? I am thinking of something analogous to globbing ('$a*') over variable names. Ideally, I would like to write code like

for ( @a )
{
   print ${ $_ };
}
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where @a should hold the names of all variables starting with $a, say, or mathing some other pattern of the variable name (not content!).

Did I explain this comprehensibly? And, if so, any help on this?

Cheers -

Pat

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Re: "Globbing" over variable names in Perl? by Anonymous Monk on Sep 29, 2010 at 17:16 UTC
1 `perl -le"print for keys %::" perl -le"print for keys %main::"` [download] 2 `$ perl -le"package stuff; $soy =1; $sauce =2; print for keys %stuff::" sauce soy` [download] 3 `$ perl -MData::Dumper -le"package stuff; $soy =1; $sauce =2; print &: +:Dumper( \%stuff:: ) " $VAR1 = { 'sauce' => stuff::sauce, 'soy' => stuff::soy };` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: "Globbing" over variable names in Perl? by pat_mc (Pilgrim) on Sep 29, 2010 at 17:33 UTC
Thanks, this is cool stuff ... solution 2 is exactly what I was looking for! At least it returns a clean list of all variables defined. Could you briefly expand on the syntax, please? I am not familiar with `package stuff`. Thanks again - Pat	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: "Globbing" over variable names in Perl? by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Sep 29, 2010 at 19:19 UTC
I am not familiar with `package stuff`. See package.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: "Globbing" over variable names in Perl? by jethro (Monsignor) on Sep 29, 2010 at 17:11 UTC
`perl -le '$a1 = 3; $a2 = 4; $c = 2; print join " \| ",(keys %main:: ); +'` [download] This works only for global variables, not the ones declared with 'my'	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: "Globbing" over variable names in Perl? by pat_mc (Pilgrim) on Sep 29, 2010 at 17:28 UTC
Thanks, jethro... this is a good point to start from. However, `print keys %main::` returns an awful lot of gibberish along with the desired variable names. Still, this array of hash keys would be a helpful starting point. Thanks again for your help! Pat	[reply] [d/l]
Re: "Globbing" over variable names in Perl? by DrHyde (Prior) on Sep 30, 2010 at 09:52 UTC
Brother Jethro's reply answers the question as asked. However, if you want "dynamic" variable names, then you are very strongly advised to use a hash, so that you can calculate hash keys on the fly instead of variable names. This is far easier to make work with `use strict`, which will help avoid all kinds of subtle bugs, and just as importantly it will be easier for someone else to understand later. Hell, it'll be easier for you to understand later too.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: "Globbing" over variable names in Perl? by suhailck (Friar) on Sep 29, 2010 at 17:29 UTC
`perl -e '$a1="1";$a2="2";$a4="3"; print map {q{$}.$_,"\t",${$_},"\n"} grep {m/^a.*$/}(sort keys %main:: +)' $a1 1 $a2 2 $a4 3` [download]	[reply] [d/l]