Re: Fixed Length Text Extract, Write to Excel

From: Rob Dixon (rob_at_dixon.port995.com)
Date: 01/07/04 

To: beginners@perl.org
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:55:16 -0000

William Martell wrote:
>
> I am trying to work with the code I have to extract fields from a text file
> report, and write the values into excel.
>
> I am having trouble.
>
> When I get to push @order_detail, %item

Looking at your code, you mean

  push @order_detail, \%item

> I understand that this is pushing an associative array onto a list. (array
> of hashes)
>
> I am trying to write code that will open a new work*** in excel and print
> the values of %item onto a row. When Perl encounters a certain key
> (cust_number), I would like it to start a new row.
>
> I have tried keys(), values(), pop() but I can't get it right. I think some
> of my trouble is b/c of the reference \%item. When I remove the reference
> backslash operator like this %item and type print. Perl returns with the
> contents in scalar.
>
> So. My main question is how do I access the values and keys of %item in
> @order_detail???

Hi William.

You're building an array of hash references. To access a hash values
from a given array element, write

  my $cust_number = $order_detail[0]{cust_number}

To do the same for each detail record, do this

  foreach my $detail (@order_detail) {
    my $cust_number = $detail->{cust_number};
  }

The value returned will be 'undef' if there is no such element for a given
order detail record.

I hope this helps.

Rob