FAQ 4.66: How can I make the Perl equivalent of a C structure/C++ class/...

This message is one of several periodic postings to DevShed's Perl forum intended to make it easier for Perl programmers to find answers to common questions. The core of this message represents an excerpt from the documentation provided with every Standard Distribution of Perl.

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How can I make the Perl equivalent of a C structure/C++ class/hash or array of hashes or arrays?

Usually a hash ref, perhaps like this:

$record = {
NAME => "Jason",
EMPNO => 132,
TITLE => "deputy peon",
AGE => 23,
SALARY => 37_000,
PALS => [ "Norbert", "Rhys", "Phineas"],
};

References are documented in the perlref manpage and the upcoming the
perlreftut manpage. Examples of complex data structures are given in the
perldsc manpage and the perllol manpage. Examples of structures and
object-oriented classes are in the perltoot manpage.
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Documents such as this have been called "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions" or FAQ for short. They serve to reduce the volume of redundant traffic on this bulletin board by providing quality answers to questions that keep comming up. If you find errors or other problems with these postings please send corrections or comments to the posting email address.


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Written by Anonym0us, inspired by the original PerlFAQ Server.

stop posting crap! if people wanted to know all these questions they would ask

Otherwise know as an anonymous hash!!




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that's why they're posted, i assume, because they are frequently asked.

Pre-answering questions doesn't help at all since people would ask over and over again anyway. In forums, the whole idea is to ask first and answer next.
The way Anonym0us been doing eventually is wasting the resources of devshed and somehow annoying to everyone.
On the other hand, he should ask devshed for permission to add a new PerlFAQ section in the main section of devshed which should be a wiser thing to do.

i dunno, i find the posts very informative, and, even if i already knew most of the info, there is usually something i wasnt aware of in the post.

How about hte Perl documentation. All of the FAQs are there...

>>i find the posts very informative
>>i assume, because they are frequently asked.

Frequently asked here? I guess not. Look at the time pattern:

PerlFAQ 0 December 18, 2000 01:51 PM
PerlFAQ 0 December 19, 2000 01:41 PM
PerlFAQ 0 December 20, 2000 01:41 PM
PerlFAQ 0 December 21, 2000 01:40 PM
PerlFAQ 0 December 22, 2000 01:40 PM
PerlFAQ 0 December 23, 2000 01:40 PM
PerlFAQ 0 December 24, 2000 01:40 PM
PerlFAQ 0 December 25, 2000 01:41 PM

This indicates he was using an automate-posting script and run via cron and randomly picks out particular FAQ.

Though I strongly agreed with Anonym0us that people should RTFM before posting but the ask first, answer next is the nature of what a forum should be.

Actually, the ones posted are pretty crap compared to the rest. There is some really quality stuff in those FAQ's and eventually someone is going to find them extremely helpful. Besides, how is one post a day wasting resources?

Everyone wants to get the most out of the forums. Ask a question and get an answer, done!
Your posts were neither asking a question nor replying to someone's question. To most of us, it's like getting unwanted junk mails from a mailing list we have never subscribed to.
Say Devshed is a mail client program resides in the hard disk of our computers and we are the owner of our computers and of course, you are the spammer. We don't have to read your junk mails but it's annoying to us. As for your junk mails that reside in our hard drive, that's wasting the resources of our hard drive (Devshed) as well as our internet bandwidth to retrieve emails, that is another waste of resource.
Your FAQs were informative but fewer than 20% of us would click the Search link, so there is a great chance they would miss your posts as time goes by.
We all know that you would like to help, but there are many alternate ways to do it as I mentioned previously.