How to print the deep content of the array?

[Anonymous Monk]

How can I accept an array as input and print out the deep content of the array?

my @ary = (1, ["a", "b", [ ], [3, [0],5]);

Would like to print out:

(1, [a, b, [ ], [3, [0], 5])

(formatting fixed by editors)

Originally posted as a Categorized Question.

[chromatic]

If it doesn't need to be in that exact format, the built in Data::Dumper module is quite nice:

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper(\@ary);

Otherwise, you'll have to loop through the elements of the array, checking them with ref and recursing when necessary. It's doable, but not terribly fun.

[princepawn]

If using Data::Dumper as above, you will not have a descriptive name for the array. While this is not a problem when printing one variable, it can be when printing more. So, instead:

@a=(1,2,3);
$b= [ 4,5,6 ];
use Data::Dumper;
Data::Dumper->Dump([\@a,$b],['a','b'])

[ton]

Of course it's more fun to do it yourself. Try this:

my @ary = (1, ['a', 'b', [], [3, [0], 5]]);

print_deep_array(\@ary);
print "\n";

sub print_deep_array($)
{
    my $arrRef = shift;
    for (my $i = 0; $i < scalar(@$arrRef); ++$i) {
        if (ref($arrRef->[$i]) eq 'ARRAY') {
            print ', ' if ($i);
            print '[';
            print_deep_array($arrRef->[$i]);
            print ']';
        } else {
            print ', ' if ($i);
            print $arrRef->[$i];
        }
    }
    print ' ' if (!scalar(@$arrRef));
}