What's wrong with this code? PERL HELP!

[adamadamson]

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[Corion]

Usually, perl already tells you what it thinks is wrong with some code. What did Perl tell you when you ran the program?

[roboticus]

adamadamson:

It would be hard to tell what's wrong with the code unless we know what it's supposed to do. You really need to provide context! Error messages, sample data, sample output, etc., would go a long way towards making your question something people might try to answer.

Just for anyone who cares, I reformatted your code below. However, after reformatting your code, I only saw two typos that you could've found yourself had you added use warnings; and use strict; to your program. Other than those, I didn't see anything painfully obvious.

Without a clue as to what it is supposed to do, though, I'm not going any further. Yeah, I *could* try to analyze the code to figure out what it's supposed to do. But since you already *know* what it's supposed to do, I needn't waste my time on that.

sub supercede {
   my $self        = shift;
   my $records        = shift;
   my $supercede    = shift;
   my $ignore        = shift;

   my (%added, $field, $found, $key, $record, @records, @results, $ret
+urned, %superceded, $originalid, $value);

   foreach $returned (@{$records}) {
       foreach $field (keys %$supercede) {
           if ($returned->{$supercede->{$field}}) {
               foreach $key (keys %{$records}) {
                   if (!grep(/^$key/, @{$ignore})) {
                       $superceded{$returned->{$supercede->{$field}}}-
+>{$key} = $retruned->{$key};
                   } else {
                       if (!$superceded{$returned->{$field}}) {
                           $found = 0;
                           foreach $record (@{$records}) {
                               if ($record->{$field} == $returned->{$s
+upercede->{$field}}) {
                                   $found = 1
                                   last;
                               }
                           }

                           if ($found == 0) {
                               $superceded{$returned->{$supercede->{$f
+ield}}}->{$key} = $returned->{$key};
                           }
                       }           
                   }
               }
           } else {
               if (!$superceded{$returned->{$field}}) {
                   $superceded{$returned{$field}} = $returned;
               }
           }
       }
   }

   foreach $value (values $superceded) {
       if (!$added{$value}) {
           push @results, $value;
           $added{$value} = 1;
       }
   }

   return @result;
}

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

[Athanasius]

Hello adamadamson, and welcome to the Monastery!

Building on roboticus’s answer: I believe there are actually three typos: one misspelling, one missing semicolon, and one wrong sigil ($ instead of %).

I suggest that your next step should be to take the line:

my (%added, $field, $found, $key, $record, @records, @results, $return
+ed, %superceded, $originalid, $value);

and move each variable declaration to the point in the code where it’s actually needed. (This may be the point where it’s first used, or it may be a point before that — see e.g. Coping with Scoping). When you do this, you will find that only one of these 11 variable declarations needs to be on this line in the code; and one isn’t needed at all (because it’s never used).

You should also give careful consideration to your variable names. Having a scalar variable named $supercede (which appears to be a hash reference), and a hash variable named %superceded, is a recipe for confusion.

By the way, when you have a structure like this:

if (...) {
    ...
} else {
   if (...) {

you can in many cases reduce indentation, and so make the code easier to read, by using Perl’s elsif construct (see Compound Statements):

if (...) {
    ...
} elsif (...) {

Hope that helps,

[1nickt]

What's wrong with this code?

1. It is not enclosed in code tags, so we can't read it.
2. It appears to have line numbers at the beginning of the concatenated lines ...

Try :set nonu in your vim, and then paste it back here inside code tags.

See http://www.perlmonks.com/?node=PerlMonks%20FAQ#Posting-on-PerlMonks for more info ...

Thanks!

[Anonymous Monk]

Hi 1nickt, All Links Within PerlMonks Should Be Relative

[AnomalousMonk]

What's wrong with the code? It can't be read! Please Update your original post to use  <c> ... </c> or  <code> ... </code> tags around code, data and input/output. Please see Markup in the Monastery and Writeup Formatting Tips.

[stevieb]

Welcome to PerlMonks!

Please read the following... How do I post a question effectively?.