Not reinventing the wheel

[Haunter]

I am reading from a flat file database with the following structure

ID | ParentID | NAME
ID | ParentID | NAME
ID | ParentID | NAME
ID | ParentID | NAME


I am trying to avoid reinventing the wheel here. I now it is possible to iterate through the array an build a tree.

I am trying to create and xml like output with opening and losing tags like so.
In this case the opening tag is "item[" and the closing tag is "]"

item[ { type:name }
{ type:name }
item [ { type:name }
{ type:name }
]
]

Any suggestions on how to organize my code or has someone done this before so I dont have to reinvent the wheel.

Thanks in advance


haunter@battlestrata.com

 

[MikeLacey]

Hi Haunter - sounds as if what you need are hashes of hashes etc. Have a look at the Data Structures Cookbook file://C:\Perl\html\lib\Pod\perldsc.html on my system, probably on yours as well.

Mike

"Deliver me from the bane of civilised life; teddy bear envy."

Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq219-2884

 

[PaulTEG]

Also look up XML on search.cpan.org, chances are you're not the first to try what you're doing
;-)

--Paul

It's important in life to always strike a happy medium, so if you see someone with a crystal ball, and a smile on their face ... smack the fecker

 

[waiterm]

I was thinking hashes as well MikeLacey as I only managed to learn how to use these yesterday so they're fresh in my mind. Some simple points to remember for hashes:
1. Create an empty hash:

my %hash = ();

2. Hashes use keys to reference the elements, unlike arrays which use scalar values (correct me if I'm wrong).

$hash{ $key } = { 'value1' => $value1, 'value2' => $value2 };

3. To loop through them use something like:

for my $key (keys %hash)  {
   my $value = $hash{$key};
   print "$key => $value\n";
}

I found a good web site all about hashes at:

http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~abatko/computers/programming/perl/howto/hash/

Rob Waite

http://www.hostpipe.co.uk?src=TT