Returning values from a sub routine.

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

Hi Monks, I have a similar problem as I saw it here and using the same sample code my question is, what if some of these elements are repeated, how would be the best way to return these values from the sub routine, would I have to use a two dimensional array instead?


use strict;
use warnings;

my $info = test();

for my $name (sort keys %$info) {
    
    #print "$name: $info->{$name}\n";
    my $checking = printing(
                             names    => $name,
                             emails   => $info->{$name},
                            );
}


 sub printing {

 my (%args) = @_;
 my $names = $args{names} || '';
 my $emails = $args{emails} || '';

 # need to count how many unique and repeated items and print results
 print "Unique=$names: $emails\n";
 print "Dups  =$names: $emails\n";
 
 }

sub test {
    my (@names_all, @email_all);
    my @names = qw(Joe mary ann pete amy jerry Joe ann John John );
    my @email = qw(joe@test.com mary@test.com ann@nowhere.com
        pete@here.com amy@ok.com jerry@b.com joe@test.com ann@nowhere.
+com John@test.com John@ok.com);
    my %emails;

    @emails{@names_all} = @email_all;
    @emails{@names}     = @email;
    return \%emails;

}
[download]

Thanks for the help!

Comment on Returning values from a sub routine. Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Returning values from a sub routine. by suaveant (Parson) on Jul 31, 2012 at 15:02 UTC
Either use an anonymous array, or store the values in the hash as arrays so that you can have multiple emails per name. Then you'd do something like `for my $email (@{$info->{$name}}) { my $checking = printing( names => $name, emails => $email, ); }` [download] Or you could possibly just combine emails into a comma separated list if that is an acceptable output. - Ant - Some of my best work - (1 2 3)	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Returning values from a sub routine. by Anonymous Monk on Jul 31, 2012 at 17:05 UTC
Would you be able to post some sample code using the code posted here using an anonymous array to return the values?	[reply]
Re^3: Returning values from a sub routine. by suaveant (Parson) on Jul 31, 2012 at 17:33 UTC
I can get you started. You wouldn't be able to assign directly to a hash slice like you do, you'd have to iterate. If using a hash of arrays I'd always use an array as the value, even if its only one value, will help keep the code simpler. You can loop through both arrays separately or combine them `for my $name ( @names_combined ) { push @{$emails{$name}}, shift(@emails_combined); }` [download] - Ant - Some of my best work - (1 2 3)	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Returning values from a sub routine. by Anonymous Monk on Jul 31, 2012 at 18:04 UTC
Re^5: Returning values from a sub routine. by suaveant (Parson) on Jul 31, 2012 at 19:38 UTC
Re: Returning values from a sub routine. by 2teez (Vicar) on Jul 31, 2012 at 20:27 UTC
Hi, Please, try the code below it's an addition to suaveant previous code. It should do what you want or you can improve on it, until you get what you really want! use strict; use warnings; my $info = test(); printing($info); sub printing { my ($args) = @_; foreach my $name ( keys %{$args} ) { # tell the number of emails attached to a person my $count = scalar @{ $args->{$name} }; # if more than one email is attached to a person # that individual is not Unique $count == 1 ? print "Unique: ", $name, " email: ", @{ $args->{$name} }, +$/ : print "Dups: ", $name, map { " email: $_$/" } @{ $args->{ +$name} }; } } sub test { my @names = qw(Joe mary ann pete amy jerry Joe ann John John ); my @email = qw(joe@test.com mary@test.com ann@nowhere.com pete@here.com amy@ok.com jerry@b.com joe@test.com ann@nowhere.co +m John@test.com John@ok.com); my %emails; foreach my $name (@names) { push @{ $emails{$name} }, shift @email; } return \%emails; } [download] Output `Unique: jerry email: jerry@b.com Unique: pete email: pete@here.com Dups: Joe email: joe@test.com email: joe@test.com Dups: John email: John@test.com email: John@ok.com Unique: amy email: amy@ok.com Dups: ann email: ann@nowhere.com email: ann@nowhere.com Unique: mary email: mary@test.com` [download] You might want to check the following documentation for more info: perldsc perldata perllol Also check this module: Data::Dumper it stringified perl data structures, suitable for both printing and eval!!!	[reply] [d/l] [select]