Hashes are slower than arrays, but I don't usually worry about those things unless performance is an issue. I recommend (others will no doubt have different opinions) that you use a hash when it makes your life easier... in this case it might not, but that is up to you to decide. The only time I do things the "harder" way is if it saves a good amount of run time.
By the way, you are using an array and *not* a list. It might seem like they are synonymous but they really aren't. And array is a Perl data type and a list is just a list of data. There was a good article in the Perl Journal differentiating between them, it might also be on Perl.com. Rob -----Original Message----- From: Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 10:12 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Lists or hash Thank you to everyone on this list who has been most helpful and patient! I was able to track down the Camel Book at a bookstore and I have not stopped reading. I do have a question concerning list and hash and the performance. I am reading a file into a list and then formatting it to prepare it for a mainframe. Currently I read the contents into a list as such: my @fields = split(/\t/, $record) and then I call them by $fields[0], etc. Would it be more beneficial to use a hash instead? Or is that overkill? I would need to set the key and then import the values from the file import. -Scott -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
