how to pass array to a subroutine?

[makarandmk]

Hi I am novice user of perl.. my q is how to pass an array to a subroutine and how we can access different values of the array in the subroutine?

 

[tanderso]

You need to do it with a reference, eg:

sub test {my ($arrayref) = @_; my @array = @$arrayref; return \@array;}

my @array = (a, bunch, of, stuff);
my $arrayref = test(\@array);

A better way would be to pass objects, which are already references.
Sincerely,

Tom Anderson
CEO, Order amid Chaos, Inc.

http://www.oac-design.com

 

[makarandmk]

Thanks very much.. it worked for me..

regards,
Makarand

 

[Haunter]

There is a fairly complete discussion of this topic in the Man pages under perlref. You should take a looke there for a more complete discusion.

You may find that passing a hash reference is a little more useful

$hashreference={'this'=>"$that",
'mine'=>"$notyours"}

test($hashreference);

sub test {
my $hashreference = shift;
#dereference a hash key
print $hashrefernce->{this};
}

 

[rosenk]

You can also just pass the array. You can do this if you want an array to be the last, or only, parameter of a function.

[tt]sub arrayTest {
my @parms = @_;
print join(", ", @parms);
}

my @a = ("this", "is", "a", "test"
arrayTest(@a);[/tt]

(Obscurely, you can also pass an array to a function that takes several parameters. The first element of the array is the first parameter, second the second, etc. Any remaining elements would be left for the final [array] parameter.)

If you plan to change the array or its values, you'll need to go with the array ref, though.