Traversing hashes in Perl based on config - perl

Question

I need to be able to pluck specific values from data that I receive from different 3rd parties. The data can structured differently depending on the 3rd party. For example:
my $first =
{
email => "joe\#example.com",
firstname => "Joe",
lastname => "Regular",
};
my $second =
{
user => {
e-mail => "joe\#example.com",
firstName => "Joe",
lastName => "Regular",
}
};
I know what the data structure will be for each 3rd party, so I can define that as config. What I want to end up with is
my $email = _magic($first_config,$first);
my $other_email = _magic($second_config,$second);
Any ideas much appreciated.

Answer 1

Build a look-up table. And you can use a dispatch table, hash with values being code references, so that when a party-identification is used as the key the code for that party executes
my %get_value = ( first => \&fetch_first, second => \&fetch_second );
my $party = 'first'; # input via command-line options, STDIN ...
my $email = $get_value{$party}->();
where \&fetch_first is a reference to the subroutine fetch_first. You can also enter it directly, first => sub { ... }, suitable for simple code. See perlreftut, perlref, and perlsub.
There are many ways to carry data in your program, and so to implement the lookup itself.
Here is an illustration, built in steps. It uses the (confirmed) fact that the data is in valid Perl data structures, and for simplicity it specifies the data right in each sub.
sub fetch_first {
my $data = {
email => '...',
firstName => '...',
};
return $data->{email};
}
This only delivers the email address, but we can do better.
Once you dereference a code reference you can also pass arguments
my $first_name = $get_value{$party}->('firstName');
where the subs are now written to use this input to return the required field
sub fetch_first {
my ($query) = #_;
my $data = {
email => '...',
firstName => '...',
};
return $data->{$query};
}
A big weakness of the above is that the calling code must use valid names of keys, so it needs to know the details of implementation of what it is using.
This can be improved, for example by choosing an interface for the call which is then translated in the subs into key names (or via yet another look-up structure). Then you make calls such as
my $email = $get_value{$party}->('email'); # or: 'first', 'last'
and somewhere you have association first => 'firstName' (etc) which subs can look up.
The flexibility is greatly helped by data being set up in a consistent way. The whole thing can also be quite maintainable if the code is organized thoughtfully.
If this grows more complex the solution is to write a class. Then you can build a very nice system.