SPUG: Introducing me + dumb newbie question

Mathew D. Watson matw at halcyon.com
Thu Sep 23 14:54:51 CDT 1999


Finally, some questions I might be able to answer. ... Perl gurus please
take it easy on me if I've blundered.

1. %count is an associateve array (or hash).  The statement that creates
%count is 

$count{$word}++

I think it gets created when the interpreter first hits that statement, but
I'll let someone who really knows answer that.

2. No, %count contains both the keys and the values. I don't have perl up
and running right now, but here's something you can do to try and get a
feel for how associative arrays are structured:

@foo = %count;
print @foo;

You'll see both the keys and values (they won't look pretty though). Now if
someone can answer your question number 3., then you can examine @foo using
the  debugger.

Good Luck!

Mat


At 11:13 AM 9/23/99 PDT, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>First, I'd like to introduce myself.  My name is Mike Herrewig.  I've just 
>recently moved to Everett from Baraboo, WI.  I've been using information 
>systems since 1994 when I joined the Army.  Since, I have had experience 
>with almost everything.  If it has a monitor and keyboard I've probably used 
>it:)
>
>A few weeks ago I began my rigorous perl self-education with "Learning Perl" 
>by the wonderful people at ORA.  I have no previous programming experience 
>besides a little BASIC(more specifically Qbasic), with a dash of Pascal and 
>some bash shell thrown in for flavor.
>
>Anyway, here's my question pertaining to Chapter 5, Hashes.  Exercise 2 at 
>the end of the chapter challenged me to the point of total confusion.  I 
>tried for a couple of hours to figure it out myself before giving up and 
>looking at the answer in the back.  After seeing the answer I was even more 
>confused.  For those who don't have the book I'll include the exercise and 
>code below:
>
>2. Write a program that reads a series of words with one word per line until 
>end-of-file, then prints a summary of how many times each word was seen.
>
>#!/usr/bin/perl -w
>#typos are mine :)
>print "Please enter a few words, one word per line (^D to end)\n";
>chomp(@words = <STDIN>);
>foreach $word (@words) {
>   $count{$word}++;
>}
>foreach $word (keys %count) {
>   print "$word was seen $count{$word} times.\n";
>}
>
>If anybody can answer 1 or more of the following questions, it would be 
>wonderfully appreciated to the point where I may consider sending money:)
>
>1. at which point is the %count actually created and what values are being 
>injected(I'm assuming numbers)?
>2. does %count only contain keys? the book mentioned nothing of this 
>functionality.
>3. is there a perl IDE available to set breaks and step through the code and 
>view variable info intermittantly like Qbasic (lame i know)?
>4. do I read the perldocs with man or perldoc?
>5. anybody have a jr. SA job available for a hard-working, fast learning, 
>enthusiastic person?
>
>If you've made it this far, thank you.  I look forward to meeting some of 
>you at the next meeting (if I'm still invited after sending this blatantly 
>self-serving message :)  I bow to the perl gurus.
>-
>
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