on Mon, 06 May 2002 08:32:11 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Martin A. Hansen) wrote:
> im able to generate records of this kind: > my $records = > { > 'bleh' => { > 'ISHpix' => [], > 'gelpix' => [], > 'base' => [ > '' > ], > [...more keys deleted for brevity...] > 'mt' => [ > 'bleh' > ], > 'band' => [ > '' > ] > } > } > > how do i print a specific record? > > i would like to be able to check if a record already exist so i > dont overwrite it. If I understand your datamodel correctly, your first 'bleh' is a primary key, and the second-level hash keys are column descriptors. You can use print "key 'bleh' already exists\n" if exists $records->{'bleh'}; to check whether a record with a specific primary key already exists. To print out records, you could use the following subroutine: print_record($records, 'bleh'); sub print_record { my $source = shift; my $key = shift; return unless exists $source->{$key}; print "Contents of record with primary key $key:\n"; foreach my $field (sort keys %{$source->{$key}}) { print "\t$field: "; print "[" . join(", ", @{$source->{$key}{$field}}) . "]\n" ; } print "\n"; return; } But I have a question: what is the functional difference between "[]" and "['']" in your columns? -- felix -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]