Re: Shortcut operator for $a->{'b'}=$b if $b;

[halley]

in reply to Shortcut operator for $a->{'b'}=$b if $b;

No really swift code I can think of, which prevents the keys from being inserted. But if you can allow empty keys to exist briefly, you can audit them afterwards:

$a = { d=>1, e=>2, f=>3, g=>undef, h=>0, i=>4 };
delete @$a{ grep { not $a->{$_} } keys %$a };

Of course, that's just shifting the ugliness.

[radiantmatrix]

A little less ugly audit:

for (keys %$a) { delete $a->{$_} unless $a->{$_} }

Note: that should probably be unless defined $a->{$_} so we don't remove false keys, but I made the choice to mirror the OP's syntax.