Re: Need help with filling a complicated data structure

[Laurent_R]

Hi Lady_Aleena

I am wondering about something: if I understand correctly, your input data has a hierarchy with only 3 levels, and from there, you seem to be willing to build a nested structure with about nine levels of "nestedness". Are you sure you really need such a complicated data structure? It seems to be overkill to me. Wouldn't a simple 3-level nested data structure be more practical?

Cheers

[Lady_Aleena]

Laurent_R, for 1 level it is rather easy to use list.

list($tab, $type, [$value1, $value2]);

Now if either of those have a list too, it starts to get complicated.

list($tab, $type, [
  [$value1, { inlist => [ $inlist1_type, [ $value1a, $value1b ] ], cla
+ss => $value1class }],
  [$value2, { inlist => [ $inlist2_type, [ $value2a, $value2b ] ]}],
]);

And if it goes deeper.

list($tab, $type, [
  [$value1, { inlist => [ $inlist1_type, [ $value1a, $value1b ] ], cla
+ss => $value1class }],
  [$value2, { inlist => [ $inlist2_type, [ 
    [$value2a, { inlist => [ $inlist2a_type, [$value2a1, $value2a2 ] ]
+}],
    [$value2b, { style => 'font-size: small' }]
  ]]}],
]);

A lot more than the inner lists goes into the hash refs: class, id, style, lang, various javascript attributes. For list items there is also value, so if $value2's inlist were an ordered list (but not starting at 1), I would do the following, and will have to for some lists...

list($tab, $type, [
  [$value1, { inlist => [ $inlist1_type, [ $value1a, $value1b ] ], cla
+ss => $value1class }],
  [$value2, { inlist => [ $inlist2_type, [ 
    [$value2a, { inlist => [ 'o', [
      [$value2a1, { value => '2' }],
       $value2a2
    ]]}],
    [$value2b, { style => 'font-size: small' }]
  ]]}],
]);

For example, I own books 2-5 of Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony, so I would like to write the data like...

#2 Mercenary
# Politican
# Executive
# Statesman

For for another series of novels, it is even odder.

#41 The Soldier's of Fear
#47 Q-Space

Writing the subroutines to make HTML lists was kind of fun, but it is a lot of work to use it.