LPM: record creation in perl

[Kenneth Rogers]

I've been trying to puzzle this one out of the cookbook for about half an hour now and I just can't quite get it.

p.383 if you want to follow along.

They've created a record '$record' which is an anonymous hash, they claim to be able to make a hash of these records for use

"#store record
$byname{ $record->{NAME} } = $record; "

So then in order to make a bunch of these does this mean I need to have a $record that's separate for each one that I want to build?  I'm hoping not I'm trying to make a dynamic system where I can create these records (the one's I'm using have 4 integers and an array that contains integers and characters right now).  The problem I see right now is that I don't know how to just add a new record to '$byname' without completely creating the whole record first, I'd rather be able to say something like

$byname{$record->{NUMBER} } = { NUMBER => 2,
                                                                  PARENT => 1,
                                                                  BOARD => @board };

but I can't tell if that's legal ( it doesn't compile but that could be my fault and not that its impossible to do. )


Is there a better way to do this?  Maybe a two dimensional array or somesuch, I can't figure out how to get the data I need packed into a 2D array right now though.

anyway, Thanks In Advance.

Ken R.

OS X: Power meets Grace, Unix with a Macintosh face. -- Salon.com