Saving and restoring hash variable data

[as_ndr]

I have a complex hash:

$db{worda}[0] = "stringa";
$db{worda}[1] = "stringb";
$db{worda}[2] = "stringc";
$db{wordb}[0] = "stringd";
$db{wordb}[1] = "stringe";
$db{wordc}[0] = "stringf";
$db{wordd}[0] = "stringg";
$db{worde}[1] = "stringh";
$db{worde}[2] = "stringi";
$db{worde}[3] = "stringj";

but 500 times bigger. Is there a way to save it to a file and restore it later in only a few lines. The file doesn't have to be ledgible to the human eye. I just need a way to save and restore the data from the hash quickly and easily. Thanks!

[GrandFather]

See XML::Simple or Storable

[friedo]

See also YAML

[Siddartha]

Also have a look at Data::Dumper. Easiest way I have found to dump and restore most data structures. Has the added convenience of being human readable (As long as you understand Perl syntax).

[TedPride]

$rd is the record delimiter and $fd the field delimiter. Both must not be found in either keys or strings. I've used \n and \t for simplicity, but special characters or character sequences are probably smarter.

my $rd = "\n";
my $fd = "\t";

my %db;
$db{worda}[0] = "stringa";
$db{worda}[1] = "stringb";
$db{worda}[2] = "stringc";
$db{wordb}[0] = "stringd";
$db{wordb}[1] = "stringe";
$db{wordc}[0] = "stringf";
$db{wordd}[0] = "stringg";
$db{worde}[1] = "stringh";
$db{worde}[2] = "stringi";
$db{worde}[3] = "stringj";

for (keys %db) {
    print join $fd, $_, @{$db{$_}};
    print $rd;
}

And to reverse the generated data:

my $rd = "\n";
my $fd = "\t";

my (%db, $p, $i);

$/ = $rd;
while (<DATA>) {
    chomp; ($_, @_) = split $fd;
    $db{$_} = [@_];
}

for (sort keys %db) {
    $p = $db{$_};
    for ($i = 0; $i <= $#$p; $i++) {
        print "\$db{$_}[$i] = \"$p->[$i]\";\n";
    }
}

__DATA__
wordc    stringf
wordd    stringg
worde        stringh    stringi    stringj
worda    stringa    stringb    stringc
wordb    stringd    stringe

[as_ndr]

Excellent! I will try out the suggestions now! Thanks for your help!

[as_ndr]

Solution I am using:

use XML::Dumper;
my $dump = new XML::Dumper;

$db{worda}[0] = "stringa";
$db{worda}[1] = "stringb";
$db{worda}[2] = "stringc";
$db{wordb}[0] = "stringd";
$db{wordb}[1] = "stringe";
$db{wordc}[0] = "stringf";
$db{wordd}[0] = "stringg";
$db{worde}[1] = "stringh";
$db{worde}[2] = "stringi";
$db{worde}[3] = "stringj";

my $file = "dump.xml";
$dump->pl2xml( \%db, $file );
  
my %perl = $dump->xml2pl( $file );

print "New ref: $perl{worde}[3]\n";


I can't get the end part to work, though. Once the data is back into %perl, how to I access it correctly?