in reply to parsing text file into a hash?

You are looking for symbolic references, which means not using 'use strict', which is usually a bad idea. Why not store all the data in one hash of hashes? 
use strict;
my %names;

while (<>) {
 my ($label, $name1, $name2, $name3, $name4) = split /:/;
 $names{$label}{$name1} = $name2;
 $names{$label}{$name3} = $name4;
}

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And the non strict (bad, dangerous, don't do this) version: 
# Untested, because I rarely use symbolic refs :)
while (<>) {
 my ($label, $name1, $name2, $name3, $name4) = split /:/;
 $$label{$name1} = $name2;
 $$label{name3} = $name4;
}

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Re: Re: parsing text file into a hash?
by Everlasting God (Beadle) on Jun 15, 2001 at 22:22 UTC
    That won't produce quite what he specifies: 
    yours makes %names = name => bob => jane
                             joe => sue
                     name2 => john => me
                              oh => my

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    but his text seems to say he wants this: 
    yours makes %names = name => first => bob 
                             second => jane
                             third => joe 
                             fourth => sue
                     name2 => first => john 
                              second => me
                              third => oh 
                              fourth => my

    [download]
    if this is really what is wanted, try this slight change: 
    use strict;
my %names;

while (<>)
{
  my ($label, $name1, $name2, $name3, $name4) = split /:/;
  $names{$label}{"first"} = {$name1}
  $names{$label}{"second"} = $name2;
  $names{$label}{"third"} = {$name3} 
  $names{$label}{"fourth"} = $name4;
}

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    'The fickle fascination of and Everlasting God' - Billy Corgan, The Smashing Pumpkins
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[d/l]
[select]
      Hey, I couldn't get it to compile until I changed the following
      {
      my ($label, $name1, $name2, $name3, $name4) = split /:/;
      $names{$label}{"first"} = $name1;
      $names{$label}{"second"} = $name2;
      $names{$label}{"third"} = $name3;
      $names{$label}{"fourth"} = $name4;
      }
      ...note the changes on $name1 and $name3....{$namex} to $namex;. I'm new at this, so should I have just left it alone? Is there something I just don't know? john
[reply]
        Sorry, I guess I didn't read too closely the first time. at least you got the idea. But if that's what you want, you could do this:
        my %names;
{
 my ($label, @names) = split /:/;
 @{$names{$label}}{qw(first second third fourth)} = @names;
}

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[reply]
[d/l]

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