"no fill on GD" GD.PM 1.18 HELP ME PLEASE

[calabama]

Using GD.PM ver1.18 (GIFS ALLOWED)

This is the portion of my CGI that is not making sense to me. When I use the variable $TOP instead of $black the image is not filled. However when I look at the value of $TOP it is $black.

--------------------works---------------------------

# Put a black circle around the top of image and fill it
$TOP="\$"."black";
$im->arc(79,74,14,14,0,360,$black);

$im->fill(79,74,$black);


-----------------does not work-----------------------
# Put a black circle around the top of image and fill it
$TOP="\$"."black";
$im->arc(79,74,14,14,0,360,$black);

$im->fill(79,74,$TOP);

 

[stillflame]

when you have "$black" or "$TOP" in your code, perl does a lookup for that variable ONCE, and put's it's value into place there. the string, "\$black" is just that, a string. perl doesn't know that you want the string interpreted as a variable itself. here's one way to do what you want to do (the other way i know is stupidly complex, and i'm ashamed i even spent the brain time coming up with it. if you care, it's somewhere recent in this forum...):
set $TOP equal to "black" -- no "\$".
whenever you want the value assigned to the variable $black to appear, put: "[tt]${$TOP}[/tt]". ta da! "If you think you're too small to make a difference, try spending a night in a closed tent with a mosquito."