Re: Multi-dimensional arrays and relational db data

[Sam Tregar]

On Sun, 10 Jun 2001, Me wrote:

> Agreed. So long as you are talking about Perl 5's arrays.
>
> I disagree, if you are talking about 2 dimensional structures.

You appear to have some fundamental misunderstanding about Perl 5.  Perl 5
does indeed support multidimentional arrays:

   my @matrix = ( [ 1 2 3 ]
                  [ 4 5 6 ]
                  [ 7 8 9 ] );
   print $matrix[1][2];

You could easily use either "tie" or the new "->[]"  overloading in Perl 5
to access relational databases in Perl 5.  Are you going to make me show
you an example before you believe me?

> If you don't think a two dimensional structure is a good
> basic fit with a lot of database access, what do you
> suggest IS a good fit?

SQL via DBI.  It's got a terrible learning curve but it's still around for
a reason.  You learn all about SQL's strengths if you start trying to
replace it with arrays and hashes.  Go forth and learn!

-sam