Re^3: Determine largest key in hash

[MidLifeXis]

in reply to Re^2: Determine largest key in hash
in thread Determine largest key in hash

Ok, Given that use, I would probably do either a sparse array, or a *cringe* hash with numeric keys. Please note that your data under each first level key is not correct...

my %hash = (
   1 => [
      { name => "Shrek", event => "I saw shrek!" },
   ],
   6 => [
      { name => "Donkey", event => "I saw the donkey!" },
      { name => "Fiona", event => "I saw Fiona!" },
   ],
);

You would access this stuff then with....

for my $trigger ( @{ $hash{$cnt} || [] } ) {
    # Do work here with $trigger ....
}

See Re: Determine largest key in hash for details on how to push data into the trigger list.

As a sparse array, this would look like...

my @data = (
   [        # 0 (remember, we are zero-based)
      { name => "Shrek", event => "I saw shrek!" },
   ],
   undef,   # 1
   undef,   # 2
   undef,   # 3
   undef,   # 4
   [        # 5 - zero-based => 6th element
      { name => "Donkey", event => "I saw the donkey!" },
      { name => "Fiona", event => "I saw Fiona!" },
   ],
);

You would change your loop to...

for my $trigger ( @{ $data[$cnt-1] || [] } ) {
    # Do work here with $trigger ....
}

I still have a little bit of a cringe-factor with the layout of the sparse array, and would probably reevaluate the control logic around that, but this shows a couple of ways where the structure can make quite a difference in how you manage your data.