Perl Style: Using A Hash Instead of $$name

Jan 1, 1998 by Tom Christiansen

• Using a variable to contain the name of another variable always suggests that perhaps someone doesn’t understand hashes very well. While you could write this:

      $name = "fred";
      $$name{WIFE} = "wilma";     # set %fred
  
      $name = "barney";           # set %barney
      $$name{WIFE} = "betty";
  

  Better to write:

      $folks{"fred"}  {WIFE} = "wilma";
      $folks{"barney"}{WIFE} = "betty";
  

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Copyright © 1998, Tom Christiansen All rights reserved.