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Manipulating arrays by variables

yaniv_av
Novice

Dec 30, 2002, 7:05 AM

Post #1 of 3 (270 views)

Manipulating arrays by variables	Can't Post

Suppose I have:

@A=(0,1,2);
@tmp=("group","A");

I want to print the array @A by using the variable $tmp[1] (which equal "A" in this example).
I wrote this: print "@$tmp[1]\n";
but it didn't work out.
Why, and how can I do it correctly ?

thodi
stranger

Dec 30, 2002, 9:39 AM

Post #2 of 3 (269 views)

Re: [yaniv_av] Manipulating arrays by variables [In reply to]	Can't Post

Try this one:

Code

print "@{$tmp[1]}";

davorg
Thaumaturge / Moderator

Dec 31, 2002, 2:24 AM

Post #3 of 3 (262 views)

Re: [yaniv_av] Manipulating arrays by variables [In reply to]	Can't Post

The process of using a variable as the name of another variable is called a "symbolic reference" and it's a very bad idea for many reasons which have been explained very well in these three articles. It suggest you read those before going any further.

In fact symbolic references as such a bad idea that when you put "use strict" at the top of your program (and you really should be doing that) one of the effects is to explicitly prevent you from using symbolic references.

A better way to do things like this is usually to use a hash. In your case I'd do something like this:

Code

my %arrays; 
$arrays{A} = [0, 1, 2]; 
 
my @tmp = ('group', 'A'); 
 
print @{$arrays{$tmp[1]}};

--
Dave Cross, Perl Hacker, Trainer and Writer
http://www.dave.org.uk/
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