You could put all the link particulars in a module so that changes can be
made in one place. Here is a Links.pm to give you ideas. It would be better
to go a step further and have the module read a configuration file, but I
didn't want to spoil all your fun.
If you only have a handful of links to maintain, a database may be overkill.
By putting this in a module, you should be able to make the change from a
config file to database with little, if any, change in the calling scripts.
#!/usr/bin/perl
package Links;
use strict;
use CGI qw(:standard);
my $Links = {
musings => {
text => 'Musings',
link => '/cgi-bin/musing.cgi',
id_list => [
'musing_id',
],
},
rants => {
text => 'Rants',
link => '/cgi-bin/rants.cgi',
id_list => [
'rant_id',
'ref_id',
],
},
stuff => {
text => 'Other Stuff and Junk',
link => '/cgi-bin/misc.cgi',
id_list => [
],
},
};
#-----------------------------------------------------------
sub make {
my $key = shift;
my $vals = shift;
(defined($Links->{$key})) or return;
my $info = $Links->{$key};
my @id_list;
for my $id (@{$info->{id_list}}) {
if (defined($vals->{$id})) {
push @id_list, "$id=$vals->{$id}";
}
else {
# what if?
}
}
my $url = $info->{link};
if (@id_list) {
my $id_str = join('&', @id_list);
$url = "$url?$id_str";
}
return a({-href=>$url}, $info->{text});
}
1;
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use Links;
my $vals = {
musing_id => 42,
rant_id => 1,
ref_id => 2,
foo_id => 3,
};
my $link = Links::make('musings', $vals) or die;
print "$link\n";
my $link = Links::make('rants', $vals) or die;
print "$link\n";
my $link = Links::make('stuff', $vals) or die;
print "$link\n";