This may be something very simple for you but i have been trying for it for more than one hour.
Ok.. Here is my code,
@collection = [
{
'name' => 'Flo',
'model' => '23423',
'type' => 'Associate',
'id' => '1-23928-2392',
'age' => '23',
},
{
'name' => 'Flo1',
'model' => '23424',
'type' => 'Associate2',
'id' => '1-23928-23922',
'age' => '25',
}];
foreach my $row (@collection) {
$build_status = $self->build_config($row);
}
sub build_config {
my $self = shift;
my %collect_rows = @_;
#my %collect_rows = shift;
print Dumper %collect_rows; exit;
exit;
}
Where $row is really an Hash. But when i Print it.. It gives output like below (I am using Dumper),
$VAR1 = 'HASH(0x20a1d68)';
You are confusing references with hashes and arrays.
An array is declared with:
my @array = (1, 2, 3);
A hash is declared with:
my %hash = (1 => 2, 3 => 4);
That's because both hashes and arrays are simply lists (fancy lists, but I digress). The only time you need to use the [] and {} is when you want to use the values contained in the list, or you want to create a reference of either list (more below).
Note that the => is just a special (ie. fat) comma, that quotes the left-hand side, so although they do the same thing, %h = (a, 1) would break, %h = ("a", 1) works fine, and %h = (a => 1) also works fine because the a gets quoted.
An array reference is declared as such:
my $aref = [1, 2, 3];
...note that you need to put the array reference into a scalar. If you don't and do it like this:
my @array = [1, 2, 3];
... the reference is pushed onto the first element of @array, which is probably not what you want.
A hash reference is declared like this:
my $href = {a => 1, b => 2};
The only time [] is used on an array (not an aref) is when you're using it to use an element: $array[1];. Likewise with hashes, unless it's a reference, you only use {} to get at a key's value: $hash{a}.
Now, to fix your problem, you can keep using the references with these changes:
use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
# declare an array ref with a list of hrefs
my $collection = [
{
'name' => 'Flo',
...
},
{
'name' => 'Flo1',
...
}
];
# dereference $collection with the "circumfix" operator, @{}
# ...note that $row will always be an href (see bottom of post)
foreach my $row (@{ $collection }) {
my $build_status = build_config($row);
print Dumper $build_status;
}
sub build_config {
# shift, as we're only accepting a single param...
# the $row href
my $collect_rows = shift;
return $collect_rows;
}
...or change it up to use non-refs:
my @collection = (
{
'name' => 'Flo',
...
},
{
'name' => 'Flo1',
...
}
);
foreach my $row (@collection) {
my $build_status = build_config($row);
# build_config() accepts a single href ($row)
# and in this case, returns an href as well
print Dumper $build_status;
}
sub build_config {
# we've been passed in a single href ($row)
my $row = shift;
# return an href as a scalar
return $row;
}
I wrote a tutorial on Perl references you may be interested in guide to Perl references. There's also perlreftut.
One last point... the hashes are declared with {} inside of the array because they are indeed hash references. With multi-dimentional data, only the top level of the structure in Perl can contain multiple values. Everything else underneath must be a single scalar value. Therefore, you can have an array of hashes, but technically and literally, it's an array containing scalars where their value is a pointer (reference) to another structure. The pointer/reference is a single value.