How do I create a variable whose name depends on the value of another?

[jtb1492]

I'd like to have a array with names in it, like 'Blue' and 'White' and 'Green'. Then I want to be able to create scalar variables from within some loops like:

$AWhiteBig
$BWhiteBig
$AWhiteSmall
$BWhiteSmall
$ABlueBig
$BBlueBig

etc.....

The loops I don't have a problem with. But how do I tell perl to create those variables?

Thanks!

Jason

 

[majorbiff]

Echch! Dynamic variable names. Someone give me a can opener, I think theres a can of memory pointers around here somewhere.

Alchemy is easy with Perl!
s/lead/gold/g;

 

[majorbiff]

You may want to read this:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=934985

Or this to save you time:

http://perl.plover.com/varvarname.html

Alchemy is easy with Perl!
s/lead/gold/g;

 

[KevinADC]

when I see questions like this, I wonder if all you don't need is to use a hash instead of trying to make dynamic variables.

 

[TrojanWarBlade]

Excellent answer KevinADC. Exactly what I would suggest.
Instead of:

$AWhiteBig
$BWhiteBig
$AWhiteSmall
$BWhiteSmall
$ABlueBig
$BBlueBig

You have:

$hash{'AWhiteBig'};
$hash{'BWhiteBig'};
$hash{'AWhiteSmall'};
$hash{'BWhiteSmall'};
$hash{'ABlueBig'};
$hash{'BBlueBig'};

That is much better, cleaner and will run hapilly under "use strict" whereas soft references will not.
It then becomes trivial to use a scalar for the key names:

$hash{$varName};

Trojan.