How do I loop through a multidimensional array?

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

I wan't to loop through an array which is multidimensional. Foreach does loop the correct amount of times, but does not reference the array correctly?

$items[0]{title} = "Song 2";
$items[0]{artist} = "Blur";
$items[1]{title} = "The Call of Khtulu";
$items[1]{artist} = "Metallica";

$x = "0"; 
foreach $item ($items) {
    print $items[x++]{title}; #This works
    print $item{title}; #But this doesn't. Why not?
}
[download]

Originally posted as a Categorized Question.

Comment on How do I loop through a multidimensional array? Download Code

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Re: How do I loop through a multidimensional array? by davorg (Chancellor) on Jul 04, 2001 at 13:23 UTC
A few typos that were hopefully transcription errors: `foreach $item ($items)` should be `foreach $item (@items)` and `$items[x++]{title}` should be `$items[$x++]{title}`. But your main problem is that in the loop each value of `$item` is a hash reference (not a hash), so you need to use `print $item->{title};` [download] And incidently, why do you initialise `$x` as a string, when you only ever use it as a number? Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I loop through a multidimensional array? by razzie (Initiate) on Jul 04, 2001 at 15:09 UTC
Thank you very much! You're correct, those other errors where typos generated by a combination of too much sleep and too little coffee (or was it the other way around?) when simplifying the question into an example. Your suggestion was just the elegant solution I was looking for, thanks! The corrected example would then be: `$items[0]{title} = "Song 2"; $items[0]{artist} = "Blur"; $items[1]{title} = "The Call of Khtulu"; $items[1]{artist} = "Metallica"; foreach $item (@items) { print $item->{artist}; print $item->{title}; }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Answer: How do I loop through a multidimensional array? by davorg (Chancellor) on Jul 04, 2001 at 15:34 UTC
Actually, your data structure initialisation could be a little more elegant too. Try this: `my @items = ({ title => 'Song 2', artist => 'Blur' }, { title => 'The Call of Khtulu', artist => 'Metallica' });` [download] Oh, and I knew that Metallica aren't very intelligent, but can they really not spell "Cthulhu"? -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> Perl Training in the UK <http://www.iterative-software.com>	[reply] [d/l]