multiple values for one key in hash

[sovixi]

Hi Monks, Is there any chance I can assign multiple values to one key in a hash? Thanks

[kyle]

No, but you can make the one value for a key be a reference to an array which contains multiple values.

$h{key} = [ 'value1', 'value2' ];
push @{ $h{key} }, 'value3', 'value4';
# $h{key}->[2] eq 'value3'
# ${ $h{key} }[3] eq 'value4'

If you're not familiar with array references, see perlreftut for a start.

You can also make the one value for a key be a string that encodes all the various values (e.g., CSV or Data::Dumper output, etc.)

[Fletch]

Nope. One slot in a hash holds one scalar value.

The trick is to use a scalar value that can hold more than one value instead. See perldsc and perlreftut.

[wade]

How about using a reference to an array. Here's a little ditty that builds the kind of hash for which you're looking and then prints out the results:

use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash;
my $key;
my $value;

my @data = ("foo",1, "bar",2, "foo",3, "baz",4);

while ($key = shift (@data))
{
   $value   = shift (@data);

   # push the value on the array
   push @{$hash{$key}}, $value;
}

print Dumper \%hash;

Note: you have to create the anonymous reference -- you can't just push a value if the key doesn't exist.

Update: apparently you can just push the value.

[moritz]

Note: you have to create the anonymous reference -- you can't just push a value if the key doesn't exist.

In perl you can ;-)

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash;
push @{$hash{key}}, 'value';
print Dumper \%hash;
__END__
$VAR1 = {
          'key' => [
                     'value'
                   ]
        };

This nice feature is called "autovivification" and is quite useful most of the time.

[wade]

Son of a gun! You can just push the value. I could have sworn that this didn't work when I tried it at my old job (about 2 years ago). Is this a feature that has happened since then or have I been brain dead all this time?

Thanks, moritz; ++

[Anonymous Monk]

how can i get the count of value array(multiple values are stored as an array) here?

[Athanasius]

Just dereference the array in a scalar context:

#! perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my %families = (Flintstone => [ qw(Pebbles)                    ],
                Simpson    => [ qw(Bart Lisa Maggie)           ],
                Keaton     => [ qw(Alex Mallory Jennifer Andy) ]);

for my $name (keys %families)
{
    my  $num_children = @{ $families{$name} };   # <-- Here's where it
+ happens

    if ($num_children == 1)
    {
        print "There is $num_children child in the $name family\n";
    }
    else
    {
        print "There are $num_children children in the $name family\n"
+;
    }
}

Hope that helps,

[Anonymous Monk]

I was just asking myself this same question. While I'm sure most of the comments below work just fine, I'd like to add my solution as well.

I just separated the "values" by a comma, and have a single "value" related to the key in my hash.

When I read out the key value, I'll just do a split on the value in order to break it up in to the individual data points I need.

This is simple, and very readable/easy to understand for someone who is not quite a perl monk like me.

[Hermano23]

Seems valid to me, at least as long as you're looking at a small number of vals, but as always TMTOWTDI.