Multidimension array in perl - perl

Question

I am working on a short script in which two to three variables are linked with each other.
Example:
my #batch;
my #case;
my #type = {
back => "sticker",
front => "no sticker",
};
for (my $i=0; $i<$#batch; $i++{
for (my $j=0; $j<$#batch; $j++{
if ($batch[$i]=="health" && $case[$i]$j]=="pain"){
$type[$i][$j]->back = "checked";
}
}
}
In this short code I want to use #type as $type[$i][$j]->back & $type[$i][$j]->front, but I am getting error that array referenced not defined . Can anyone help me how to fix this ?

Answer 1

Perl two-dimensional arrays are just arrays of arrays: each element of the top level array contains a (reference to) another array. The best reference for this is perldoc perlreftut
From what I can understand, you want an array of arrays of hashes. $type[$i][$j]->back and $type[$i][$j]->front are method calls in Perl, and what you want is $type[$i][$j]{back} and $type[$i][$j]{front}.
use strict;
use warnings;
my #batch;
my #case;
# Populate #batch and #case
my #type;
for my $i (0 .. $#batch) {
for my $j (0 .. $#{ $batch[$i] } ) {
if ($batch[$i] eq 'health' and $case[$i][$j] eq 'pain') {
$type[$i][$j]{back} = 'checked';
}
}
}
But I am very worried about your design. #type will be full of undefined elements, with only occasional ones set to checked. A proper fix depends entirely on what you need to do with #type once you have built it.
I hope this helps

Answer 2

Perl doesn't have multiple dimension variables. To emulate multidimential arrays, you can use what are called references. A reference is a way of referring to a memory location of another Perl structure such as an array or hash.
References allows you to build up more complex structures. For example, you could have an array and instead of each element in the array having a distinct value, it could point to another array. Using this, I can treat my array of arrays as a two dimensional array. But it's not a two dimensional array.
In a two dimensional array, each column ($j) has the same length. That's guaranteed. In Perl, what you have is each row ($i), pointing to a different array of columns ($j), and each of those column arrays could have a different number of elements (or even none at all! That inner array $j may not even be defined!).
There for, I have to check each column and see exactly how many values it might have:
for my $i ( 0..$#array ) {
if ( ref $array[i] ne "ARRAY" ) {
die qq(There is no sub array! for \$array[$i]!\n);
}
my #temp_j_array = #{ $array[$i] } { # This is how you dereference a reference
for my $j ( 0..$#temp_j_array ) {
# Here be dragons...
}
}
Note that I have to see exactly how many columns are in my inner ($j) array before I can go through it.
By the way, notice how I use .. to index my arrays. It's a lot cleaner than using that three part for loop which is very error prone. For example, should you check $i < $#array or $i <= $#array`? See the difference?
Since you're already dealing with a very complex structure (an array of arrays), I'm going to make it even more complex: (An array of arrays of hashes). This added complexity allows me to get rid of three separate variables. Instead of trying to keep #batch #case and #type in sync with each other, I can make these keys to my inner most hash:
my #structure = ... # Some sort of structure...
for my $i ( 0..$#structure ) {
my #temp = #{ $structure[$i] }; # This is a reference to an array. Dereference it.
for my $j ( 0..$#temp ) {
if ( $structure[$i]->[$j]->{batch} eq "health"
and $structure[$i]->[$j]->{case} eq "pain" ) {
$structure[$i]->[$j]->{back} = "checked";
}
}
}
This is a very common way to use Perl references to build more complex data structures:
my %employees; # Keyed by employee number:
$employees{1001}->{NAME} = "Bob";
$employees{1001}->{JOB} = "Yes man";
$employees{1002}->{NAME} = "Susan";
$employees{1002}->{JOB} = "sycophant";
You had some syntax errors, and were using the wrong boolean operator (==) instead of (ne).