foreach scope destroying array's when referenced! HELP!!

[unholyangl]

What I've been writing is a module to process a string and execute code accordingly for a set of scripts i'm working on (ex: read data from sockets, hence making communication easier.) But heres my problem...

Heres actual code:

sub trim {
   my $str = shift;
   $str =~ s/^\s+//;
   $str =~ s/\s+$//;
   return $str;
}

$_cmds{'trim'} = sub { # Wrapper to support arrays
   my $val; my @ret;
   while ($val = shift) { push(@ret, trim($val)); }
   if ( @ret > 1 ) { return \@ret; } else { return shift @ret; }
};

Everything is working perfect (or so it seems) in my module, accept for the array references.
I am calling them from within a foreach loop using the next command to jump through.

For example:

         # Execute a statement?
         ( $ccmd eq ";" ) && do {
            @tarr = @{$parr} if $parr && $parr ne 'ARRAY'; # Check
            $parr = \@carr; # reset
            if ( @tarr ) {
               $ecmd = $cmds->{shift(@tarr)}; # Retrieve command reference
               $lcmd = &$ecmd(@tarr) if $ecmd; # Execute and store in $lcmd

               # This part is added to test....
               print("Returned from $ecmd: $lcmd\n");
               if ($lcmd =~ 'ARRAY') {
                  @tarr = @{$lcmd};
                  print("addr: $lcmd; count: ".@tarr."; stringified: @tarr;\n");
               }


               @tarr = (); # Empty the array
            }
         next; };

When the array is returned, everything works here... But once we goto the next loop block; heres some code:

         # Separator?
         ( $ccmd eq "," ) && do {

               # This part is added to test....
               if ($lcmd =~ 'ARRAY') {
                  @tarr = @{$lcmd};
                  print("addr: $lcmd; count: ".@tarr."; stringified: @tarr; -,,\n");
               }

            push(@carr, $lcmd); $lcmd = undef;
            $parr = \@carr;
         next; };

Then I get an error like the following:
Can't use string ("ARRAY(0x18322e4)") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at mods/parse.pm line 66.

I turn off strict refs to do testing and the array just doesn't exist. My guess is it's getting cleared in the foreach scope. Can someone help me work out a fix for this? I need the routines to be able to pass array references back and forth to eachother... Or am I gonna need to apply a hack thats gonna slow execution speed and open doors for bugs?

HELP!! THX!

 

[icrf]

What sounds like is happening is that your array reference is getting stringified. "ARRAY(0x18322e4)" isn't actually an array reference, it's a string representation of that reference. If you want to know if a particular reference is an array, check the return value of ref.

I usually ran into this problem trying to make references keys to a hash, then pull the keys back out and expected them to act like references again. Hash keys are not just scalars, they're strings.

- Andrew
Text::Highlight - A language-neutral syntax highlighting module in Perl
also on SourceForge including demo

 

[unholyangl]

Any ideas on a fix? I'm sure it's something easy that I'm missing, but ya :-/

The routine returns like the following:
return \@ret;

It's asigned like the following:
$lcmd = &$ecmd(@tarr) if $ecmd;

And at this point it seems to be working, but then on the next foreach loop scope:
@tarr = @{$lcmd};

This is where the error comes up. Any suggestions?

 

[unholyangl]

Never mind, right after making that last post I remembered a few places where it may happen. At the end of the foreach loop, the following code was fuxin me up:

$lcmd .= $ccmd; # Collect all other data together

I changed it to:

$lcmd .= $ccmd if $ccmd; # Collect all other data together

It's working correctly now thx!

 

[icrf]

As long as you understand, b/c I don't think I do. That looks like you're appending a string value to a an array reference, which I can't imagine making any real sense.

And my point about ref was to change code like

$lcmd =~ 'ARRAY'

into

ref($lcmd) eq 'ARRAY'

as that's really what you're checking.

- Andrew
Text::Highlight - A language-neutral syntax highlighting module in Perl
also on SourceForge including demo