Re^2: How to declare variables per loop

[Anonymous Monk]

Thank you tospo,
this is correct of course, but I thought it would make the code clearer since I do not have to write down all the file names then. Besides I thought I could code the other parameter this way too (e.g. color) - see my answer on dreadpiratepeter a few minutes earlier.
VE

[tospo]

except that you do write down all the file names when you assign them to variables. Much better to construct the names of the files on the fly. For example you could do something like

my $storage_dir = "C:/Stuff/";
foreach my $category qw( abc def ghi ) {
  foreach my $subcategory qw( this that ){
    foreach my $year ( 1..3) {
      my $file = sprintf("%s_%s_02d.csv", $category, $subcategory,$yea
+r);
      my $path = $storage_dir.$file;
      # now do something with the file, i.e. generate your plot comman
+d
      do_plot( $path ); 
    }
  }
}

sub do_plot {
  my $path - shift;
  ### do the actual plotting here
}

Now you don't have to type all the combinations of categories, years etc but let the script handle that. An alternative approach would be to change the way you store the data by putting it all into a single file and starting each block of data with a string that gives yuo all those categories, as in:

#abc_this_01
 -- data goes here ---
#def_this_01
  -- more data ---
etc

Now your script doesn't need to kow anything about the categories and takes whatever is in your file, which presumably is the output of another script.