Hello:

I had the following if elsif else:

        if ($severity eq "Extreme"){
        $background = "red";
        }
        elsif ($severity eq "Severe"){
        $background = "orange";
        }
        elsif ($severity eq "Moderate"){
        $background = "yelow";
        }
        elsif ($severity eq "Minor"){
        $background = "green";
        }
        else {
        $background = "grey";
        }
[download]

It worked fine in the script as it was, but when I placed that script into a external subroutine, it broke things (took me a while to figure out that was the part of code causing the issue). So in reading around, many suggest using a hash instead of long if elsif sets. I understand that, and so now I have this:

    my %bkcolor = (
            "Extreme", "red",
            "Severe", "orange",
            "Moderate", "yellow",
            "Minor", "green",
            "", "grey"
        );

    my $background = $bkcolor{$severity};
[download]

The question I have is, is there a way to handle the last 'else' when doing things in this manor, so that if 'severity' is anything other than the 4 known responses, it will always be grey?

Or is there another way I should be doing this?

Thanks as always!

John

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

Outside of code tags, you may need to use entities for some characters:

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.