Reading a 2-D array with File handle

[ratz]

I have a script that works fine when the data is stored in the same file as the script.
The data is a 2-D array.

because the file is quite large, I stored it in a seperate .txt file to read only from the script.

But the script does not 'see' the data as a 2-d array, as it can't access specific elements.

I have scaled it down to show you what I mean:
Here data in ray.txt
[1,10,100,"a",5,2],
[2,10,100,"b",5,2],
[3,10,100,"c",5,2],
[4,10,100,"d",5,2],
[5,10,100,"e",5,2],

Here is the Script that reads from it:
$TMP='c:/scripts/ray.txt';

open (FILE,$TMP) | | die "cannot open file for read";
while (<FILE> )
{
push(@RAY,$_);}
close FILE;
#test if array has been created.
print &quot;@RAY\n&quot;; #prints OK
$num=scalar(@RAY); #returns 5
print &quot;$num\n&quot;;
$row=($RAY[1]->[3]);#does not work
print &quot;$row\n&quot;;
my $var=($RAY[1]->[2]);#does not work
print &quot;$var\n&quot;;

The exact script works OK if the data is in the same file as the script, once the data is read, the script should work as normal??right?

Sher

 

[MikeLacey]

to be honest I didn't know that trick worked at all, would guess that you've found a feature there...

have you considered [tt]split[tt]ting the data in the usual way?

Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com

http://www.cargill.com/

 

[Japh]

Hai,
The data you have in ray.txt is 6 entries in a row. So what do you mean by 2-D array???.

Give this code a try. Hope it works. $my2darr is hash, whose keys are 1,2,3,... . And the values are the rest of the entries on each line. This represents a 2D array.
To manipulate this hash use $my2darr->{key}, unlike $my2darr{key}.

use Data:umper;
$Data:umper::Indent=1;
my $my2darr ={};
while (<DATA>)
{
chomp;
s/(\[|\])//g;
split(&quot;,&quot;,$_,9999);
push(@{$my2darr->{$_[0]}},@_[1..$#_]);
}
print Data:umper->Dump([$my2darr],['MY2DARR']);
__DATA__
[1,10,100,&quot;a&quot;,8,10]
[2,10,100,&quot;b&quot;,8,10]
[3,10,100,&quot;c&quot;,8,10],
[4,10,100,&quot;d&quot;,8,10],
[5,10,100,&quot;e&quot;,8,10],

 

[MikeLacey]

think you're missing the point a bit here japh - original poster said that it worked *fine* if data was in same file as script, problem was with data in separate file....

Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com

http://www.cargill.com/