Printing content of hash of arrays of arrays - perl

Question

I've been trying to read the following structure in Perl:
my %Homes = (
"Home 1" => [
'TYPE_OF_HOUSE' => "Villa",
'FIELD1' => ["1","2","3"],
'Field2' => ["2","3","4"],
'Field3' => ["3","4","5"],
],
"Home 2" => [
'TYPE_OF_HOUSE' => "Duplex",
'FIELD1' => ["1","2","3"],
'Field2' => ["2","3","4"],
'Field3' => ["3","4","5"],
],
"Home 3" => [
'TYPE_OF_HOUSE' => "Apartment",
'FIELD1' => ["1","2","3"],
'Field2' => ["2","3","4"],
'Field3' => ["3","4","5"],
],
);
By using the following:
my #data_Array;
my ($inner_Key,$key,$names_ref);
foreach $key (keys %Homes)
{
print("Inner values of house $key are:");
foreach $inner_Key ( #{$Homes{$key}})
{
if ($inner_Key != "TYPE_OF_HOUSE")
{
$names_ref = \#$inner_Key;
#data_Array = #{$names_ref};
print($data_Array[0]);
print($data_Array[1]);
print($data_Array[2]);
}
else
{
print($inner_Key);
}
}
}
I successfully printed the: "Home 1", "Home 2", but when trying to read the inner content, even though I used reference to an array, it didn't go well. What did I miss? My goal was to "identify" the type of field, and if it was TYPE_OF_HOUSE, then simply print it because it is not an array. Otherwise, print the inner content of its array.

Answer 1

You must use strict and warnings because they will tell you a lot about what is wrong with your code.
You need to use ne instead of != when comparing strings.
You should use a different data structure to make it simpler to access inner data elements. You have a hash-of-arrays, but it would make more sense as a hash-of-hashes. By using => for 'TYPE_OF_HOUSE' => "Villa", you've tricked yourself into believing that is a hash. However, it is just a flat array. The 1st element of the array is TYPE_OF_HOUSE, the 2nd element is Villa, the 3rd is FIELD1, the 4th is an array ref, etc.
use warnings;
use strict;
my %Homes = (
"Home 1" => {
'TYPE_OF_HOUSE' => "Villa",
'FIELD1' => [ "1", "2", "3" ],
'Field2' => [ "2", "3", "4" ],
'Field3' => [ "3", "4", "5" ],
},
"Home 2" => {
'TYPE_OF_HOUSE' => "Duplex",
'FIELD1' => [ "1", "2", "3" ],
'Field2' => [ "2", "3", "4" ],
'Field3' => [ "3", "4", "5" ],
},
"Home 3" => {
'TYPE_OF_HOUSE' => "Apartment",
'FIELD1' => [ "1", "2", "3" ],
'Field2' => [ "2", "3", "4" ],
'Field3' => [ "3", "4", "5" ],
},
);
my #data_Array;
my ( $inner_Key, $key, $names_ref );
foreach $key ( keys %Homes ) {
print("Inner values of house $key are:");
print "\n";
foreach $inner_Key ( keys %{ $Homes{$key} } ) {
if ( $inner_Key ne "TYPE_OF_HOUSE" ) {
#data_Array = #{ $Homes{$key}{$inner_Key} };
print( $data_Array[0] );
print "\n";
print( $data_Array[1] );
print "\n";
print( $data_Array[2] );
print "\n";
}
else {
print($inner_Key);
print "\n";
}
}
}
I used perltidy to improve the indentation. I added newlines to make your print output easier to read.