#$ shifting themes, upon first glance        #
#      can the heart and soul really keep    #
#  up with the themes of our lives?         $#

our @themes = qw(
   fuel fire
    flame hot
     air water
    earth spirit
   desire love
    happiness peace
);

our $poem = q(
   from heart comes soul
    thus the heart is truly soul
     for without heart, one cannot have soul
    and without soul one returns to the heart
   one soul, one heart
    no heart, no soul
);

while(my $heart = shift @themes and my $soul = shift @themes)
   { $poem =~ s/heart/$heart/ && $poem =~ s/soul/$soul/ }
                       print $poem;

#$ is the theme shifting,                   #
#              or does it remain the same? $#

[download]

(UPDATE: This doesn't quite capture the grace of osfameron's implementation, but it's a little cleaner than it was before)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: shifting themes
by osfameron (Hermit) on Jul 31, 2000 at 15:48 UTC
    Just a thought I had about the shifting themes - why not tie the scalars to a shifting array (I knew that book on OO Perl would come in useful for something...)
    Not sure whether that ugly OO code has any place in a perl poem - what do you think? 
    # words and concept by alakaboo
# Tied OO implementation of shifting themes
# by Osfameron (hakim@earthling.net)

our @themes = qw( 
   fuel fire 
    flame hot 
     air water 
    earth spirit 
   desire love 
    happiness peace
);


tie $heart, 'Theme', \@themes;
tie $soul, 'Theme', \@themes;

print <<POEM;
from $heart comes $soul
thus the $heart is truly $soul              
for without $heart one cannot have $soul    
and without $soul one returns to the $heart 
one $soul, one $heart                       
no $heart, no $soul                         
POEM

package Theme;
sub TIESCALAR { bless @_[1], @_[0] };
sub FETCH { shift @{@_[0]} };

    [download]
    Update: On thinking about it, it seems churlish not to mention that that the OO book in question is Damian Conway's excellent Object Oriented Perl.

    Cheerio!
    Osfameron

[reply]
[d/l]

      This is one of those occasions where I wish I could ++ a post twice. :)

      This is an elegant solution to an otherwise inelegant problem. I've been reading about Tie() off and on since I started learning object oriented Perl programming, about two months ago, and this really brings it together for me. Ironic, dontcha think?

      Thanks for the help!!

      Alakaboo
      I am the lurker that spams in the night.

[reply]

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