Nested Data Structures

Each array or hash is a collection of scalars, some or all of which can be references to other structures.

7. Lists do not nest like this:

   @foo = (1, 3, ("hello", 5), 5.66);
   

   For nesting, make the third element a reference to an anonymous array:

   @foo = (1, 3, ["hello", 5], 5.66); 
   

8. An example of a nested data structure (a hash of array of hashes):

   $person = {
    # Anon. hash "name" => "John", # '=>' is an alias for a comma "age" => 23, "children" => [ # Anonymous array of children {
    "name" => "Mike", "age" => 3, }, {
    "name" => "Patty","age" => 4
   }
   ] };
    print $person->{age} ; # Print John's age print $person->{children}->[0]->{age};
    # Print Mike's age print $person->{children}[0]{age} ; # Print Mike's age, omitting # arrows between subscripts
   

9. To pretty-print $person above:

   use Data::Dumper; Data::Dumper->Dumper($person); # Or, require dumpVar.pl; main::dumpValue($person);