Sub parameter gathering -- one liner? 1

[Nebbish]

Hey all,

I have a fairly simple issue. I'm passing a subroutine an unknown number of variables in groups of three. For example, I might be passing it:

mySub($hello, 5, $goodbye, 'asdf', 6, 'fdsa');

or

mySub('asdf, 6, 'fdsa');

I figured I'd be slick and arrange the function to take the parameters in groups of three until none were left, using shift:

sub mySub {
while((my $string1, my $dist, my $string2) = (shift, shift, shift)) {
# process
}
}

But, this loops endlessly, even when shift is returning nothing. I'm aware of ways around this, but I'd really like a one-liner if at all possible (some variation of the above while loop?).

Thanks,

Nick

 

[nawlej]

Simple:

sub mySub {
   foreach $argument (@_) {
         # process
   }
}

 

[nawlej]

whoops
that wont work, I see your problem. I guess I should have had some more coffee.

 

[Nebbish]

No, you missed my point: I want to gather the parameters in groups of three, so they fit into $string1, $dist, and $string2 respectively. Your code gathers in groups of one. Does that make sense?

-Nick

 

[Coderifous]

I think you missed the point nawlej. He wants to handle the args by groups of three.

doit(1,2,3,4,5,6);

sub doit {
    while(my($a,$b,$c) = splice(@_, 0, 3)){
        print $a,$b,$c, "\n";
    }
}

--jim

 

[Coderifous]

Sorry nawlej, we all posted at once.

--jim

 

[Tve]

Nebbish,

I don't have perl here, so I can't give some examples, so it seems to me you could try grouping your variables, as in:

mySub([$hello, 5, $goodbye],['asdf', 6, 'fdsa']);

Your sub will then gen two array values.

Use a foreach to loop on the arrays.




AD AUGUSTA PER ANGUSTA

Thierry

 

[Nebbish]

Thanks guys...Jim, splice was what I was looking for.

Thierry, not 100% positive, but I believe Perl "flattens" lists and arrays when they are passed into subroutines, so your code would be the same thing as passing it as one big list.

-Nick

 

[Coderifous]

Thierry's code would have been valid, since he was passing in anonymous arrar references. These are just scalars.

--jim