Trying to print sql query 1

[roguedude]

Hi All,

I've essentially just started using perl and my first task is to access sales force and extract the database contents. So far, I've been successful getting a list of objects from the salesforce database, but any variation of "print" I use does not yeild the results I'm looking for. The following is an example of the closest I can get:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use

http://WWW::Salesforce::Simple;

use DBI;
use warnings;
use strict;


# Authenticate with the Salesforce API based on command line parameters.
my $sforce =

http://WWW::Salesforce::Simple->new(

'username' => $ARGV[0],
'password' => $ARGV[1]
);

my $query = 'Select a.NAME, a.Type, a.Lead from MY_NEW_DB a';

my $result = $sforce->do_query( $query );


foreach my $field (@{ $result } ) {
print $field->{'NAME'} . {'Type'} . {'Lead'} . "\n";

}

Here is what the output is:

Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at ./connect line 27.
Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at ./connect line 27.
BobBuilderConstructionHASH(0xb3d4ff8)HASH(0xa792710)

Please help.

Thanks....

 

[Kirsle]

foreach my $field (@{$result}) {
   print $field->{'NAME'} . $field->{'Type'} . $field->{'Lead'} . "\n";
}

What you were doing was only printing $field->{'NAME'} and then printing the value of two anonymous hash references (not the values you were expecting; you were instead creating new anonymous hashrefs, and Perl complained because hashes need even numbers of elements, and then printing a hashref as a scalar produces a "HASH(0x...)" string.

So ya need to reference each key the same.

-------------
Cuvou.com | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[roguedude]

Thanks for your reply and explanation. I was able to see the data using your sugestion; however got "Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at ./connect line 27."

 

[Kirsle]

If you have any null values in your table, the corresponding values in the $field hash will be `undef` in Perl, and Perl gives warnings like that when trying to do something using a variable that has an undef value.

Ya could do

print (defined $field->{'NAME'} ? $field->{'NAME'} : '') . (defined $field->{'Type'} ? $field->{'Type'} : '') . (defined $field->{'Lead'} ? $field->{'Lead'} : '');

or more simply

foreach my $field (@{$result}) {
   my $name = $field->{'NAME'} || '';
   my $type = $field->{'Type'} || '';
   my $lead = $field->{'Lead'} || '';
   print $name . $type . $lead;

That'd work as long as none of those fields will have a value of the number 0, because 0, blank, and undef all return false.

-------------
Cuvou.com | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[roguedude]

ok, so, yeah, I definately have nulls within the data. Will the above simply ignore the nulls? I have other "padding" surronding the data. I have to ensure that the data remains intact (nulls and all), as it's being ported to a different db. In addition, there is a possibility of 0's within the data. Does this mean I should not use either example from above, or just don't use the second one?

Thsnks...

 

[Kirsle]

The second example, i.e.

my $name = $field->{'NAME'} || '';

is doing, $name = the return value of $field->{NAME}, if true; otherwise it returns '' if false. So if $field->{'NAME'} is undef, 0, or blank, $name will be ''; any other value in $field->{'NAME'} and $name would be that value.

If you're using Perl 5.10 there's a feature of "defined or" which helps. But if you can't use Perl 5.10, just use the longer form of "defined or"

my $name = defined $field->{'NAME'} ? $field->{'NAME'} : ''; # Perl < 5.10
my $name = $field->{'NAME'} // ''; # Perl 5.10

Anyway, if you want to preserve nulls and everything, then don't mess with the values. Perl DBI will return nulls as `undef`, and so if you keep it undef then that'll keep it null (i.e. if you insert an undef into an update/insert SQL query, it will write it in the table as null). Just note that whenever you try to use a variable that has an undef value, Perl complains a little bit.

You can temporarily stop it from complaining with the warnings pragma.

my $var = undef;

no warnings; # turn them off
print "var = $var\n";
use warnings; # turn them back on

-------------
Cuvou.com | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[roguedude]

Thanks for your help. I was able to get the data and suppress the warnings using the info you provided. I hope I can return the favor one day...