Using eval, but always undef?

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

Hi guys/gals,

I'm trying to work out why my "eval" wont work. Basically I am grabbing an XML file, but for some reason they return errors ( no results) like so:

{
  "error":{
    "type":"ServiceException",
    "code":108,
    "message":"(#108) No results founds"
  }
}
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... but the actual results as XML (which XMLIn gives a fatal error on, as obviously thats not XML!)

Anyway, my reason for posting is that I can't see to get that above string to convert into a hash so I can check if there is an error:

my $test = eval q|{
  "error":{
    "type":"ServiceException",
    "code":108,
    "message":"(#108) No results founds"
  }
}|;

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper($test);
[download]

Always returns:

$VAR1 = undef;

Anyone got any ideas?

TIA

Andy

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Re: Using eval, but always undef? by LanX (Saint) on Mar 01, 2012 at 17:46 UTC
in perl it's š `=>` not `:` separating keys and values. maybe you wanna use a JSON module for conversion? Cheers Rolf š) normally, commas are allowed if you quote the key	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Using eval, but always undef? by ultranerds (Hermit) on Mar 01, 2012 at 17:53 UTC
Mmm ok, I was hoping it was simpler than that. Maybe I'll just do: $test =~ /\Q"type":"ServiceException",/ ...on the XML string, so I can see if it is as "bad" file :) Thanks for the replies though. Cheers Andy	[reply]
Re^3: Using eval, but always undef? by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Mar 01, 2012 at 17:59 UTC
It is simple (JSON). `use JSON; my $json_string = q\|{ "error":{ "type":"ServiceException", "code":108, "message":"(#108) No results founds" } }\|; my $perl_ref = decode_json($json_string); print $perl_ref->{error}{type}, $/; __END__ ServiceException` [download] Don't fudge it. Use the right tools. Everything else is false economy.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Using eval, but always undef? by choroba (Cardinal) on Mar 01, 2012 at 17:45 UTC
`perl -e 'my $test; eval q\|$test = { "error":{ "type":"ServiceException", "code":108, "message":"(#108) No results founds" } }\|; print "$@\n"; use Data::Dumper; print Dumper($test);'` [download] `syntax error at (eval 1) line 2, near ""error":" $VAR1 = undef;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]