I must agree with Jos on this ... I read the email and I saw that what Ron was
asking for was soft reference ... like I mentioned before a lot of the
situations (like I mentioned my experience) .. where you think that soft
reference is the only way to do it is because your mindset had been stuck in
that way but solutions using other data structures will do the job and
everyone can understand it much better ... plus you get to keep strict which i
never do without ... the use strict and #!perl lines have been programmed into
my fingers already ...
i had a situation once when one of my colleague was trying to get round a
problem and he asked me how to do soft reference ... when i asked him why he
explained what he was trying to do and suddenly we both realised that all he
needed was a hash!! Look through the problem to make sure soft reference is
what you want 'cos liek Jos said it is considered bad programming practice.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 05:33:07PM +0200, Jos I. Boumans shaped the electrons to read:
> a few notes on soft references:
>
> 1. they are generally concidered evil
> 2. they will not work under use strict
> 3. they are rarely what you really need/want
>
> I'm not saying they are bad in your case, but let me just elaborate on the
> above.
>
> you'll have to say 'no strict refs' for a certain block to have soft refs
> work under use strict.
> assuming you *are* in fact running under strict.. which imo one always
> should.
>
> furthermore, you'd need to 'my' those variables as well, to make strict
> happy.
>
> now, for another fix:
>
> ### old code ###
> > my @array = qw( first second third );
> > my $cnt = 1;
> > foreach (@array) {
> > ${$_} = $cnt++
> > }
>
> ### new code ###
> my @array = qw( first second third );
> my qw(%hash $cnt);
>
> for (@array) { $hash{$_} = ++$cnt }
>
> this sticks all those variables in one tidy hash, without upsetting strict
> or polluting your namespace with tons of global variables...
>
> just fyi,
>
> Jos
>
> > I am not sure if this will help but you might be talking about using soft
> > references ... you would have to turn off strict to use it ...
> >
> > I could not get my head aroun your description of the problem but I had
> many
> > experinces when I had discussions with people at work who felt soft
> references
> > were the only way to get to the solution and then after discussing the
> problem
> > in the open realised that a data structure is actually an easy answer to
> the
> > problem ...
> >
> > example of soft reference ...
> >
> > my @array = qw( first second third );
> > my $cnt = 1;
> > foreach (@array) {
> > ${$_} = $cnt++
> > }
> > foreach (@array) {
> > print ${$_},"\n";
> > }
> > print "\$first is $first\n";
> > print "\$second is $second\n";
> > print "\$third is $third\n";
> >
> > do what you must ...
> > On Tue, Jul 31, 2001 at 11:32:47PM -0400, Ron Woodall shaped the electrons
> to read:
> > > Hi Brett:
> > >
> > > Thanks for the reply.
> > >
> > > At 12:08 PM 7/31/01 -0400, you wrote:
> > > >On Tue, 31 Jul 2001, Ron Woodall wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I'm trying to take a word from a file and naming a scalar with
> > > > > that word. i.e. I find the word "target" in a file. I then need to
> > > > > create $target = "xxx" and various other variables related to
> target.
> > > > > Any suggestions?
> > > >
> > > >Create a hash containing the keywords in the file:
> > > >
> > > >$akey = 'target';
> > > >
> > > >$file_data{$akey} = 'xxx';
> > > >
> > > >Or even a more complex data structure:
> > > >
> > > >$file_data{$akey} = { xxx => 'stuff',
> > > > yyy => [1, 2, 3]
> > > > };
> > >
> > > Hmmmmm, I don't think this is going to work.
> > >
> > > >How exactly is the data in the file organized?
> > >
> > > Here's the problem. Go to the Compendium of HTML Elements,
> > > www.htmlcompendium.org --> Main Menu --> HTML --> Attribute Pages and
> click
> > > on one of the tag names.
> > >
> > > The right frame will open up into a list of the tag and all
> > > attributes/arguments documented to work with that tag. I'm in the
> process
> > > of completely restructuring the site and using a perl script. This is,
> in
> > > part a learning exercise for me.
> > >
> > > Here's the problem. One tag will have 166 attributes plus
> > > additional arguments for each attribute. The next tag will potentially
> have
> > > none. No two tags share all of the same attributes. I need to create a
> > > series of scalars for each attribute such that each variable can be
> > > directly addressed and decisions drawn from them and the new structure
> > > constructed.
> > >
> > > The process is to bring up a tag page, gradually work my way
> down
> > > the page parsing all of the pertinent information and storing it in
> > > variables. The attributes are then sorted and the new structure is then
> > > constructed using these variables.
> > >
> > > When this program is complete, it will provide the shell for
> the
> > > next program which will do the same thing but will add new tags,
> > > attributes, arguments, properties, values, methods and parameters.
> > >
> > > Your help is much appreciated.
> > >
> > > Ron Woodall
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------
> > > Ron Woodall
> > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > >
> > > The Compendium of HTML Elements
> > > "your essential web publishing resource"
> > >
> > > - available at/disponible ?:
> > > http://au.htmlcompendium.org/index.htm (Australia)
> > > http://www.htmlcompendium.org/index.htm (Europe and North America)
> > >
> > >
> > > --
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> > >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
>
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