Re: Weird DBI/Array Use

[madhatter]

If I know that my query is going to return only one entry, how do I avoid using a loop to gather the returned data? Anything I try just returns me an array reference.

my $result = db_execute($SQL);
foreach(@$result){
    my ($title,$body) = @$_;
    print $title;
}

Thanks,
madhatter

[Fastolfe]

If you have an array reference that you "know" will only contain one item, then it sounds like you just want to access the first element of the array:

my $result = db_execute($SQL)->[0];
my ($title, $body) = @{$result};

# or

my ($title, $body) = @{db_execute($SQL)->[0]};

Check out perlref, perllol and especially perldsc for information about references and the ways you can use them.

[repson]

If you only want one row then do use
my @result = $dbh->selectrow_array("SELECT MAX(foo) FROM blah");

If you just want one column then
my @rows = @{ $dbh->selectcol_arrayref("SELECT id FROM blah") };

Otherwise do a full $dbh->selectall_arrayref as salvadors suggests or use the full prepare, execute, fetchrow syntaxes like you were doing originally.

For information on these syntaxes and more read up on the DBI docs.