How can I use a variable as a variable name in Perl?

Question

I need to achieve the following in perl

printmsg(@val1, $msg1) if @val1;
printmsg(@val2, $msg2) if @val2;
printmsg(@val3, $msg3) if @val3;
printmsg(@val4, $msg4) if @val4;
printmsg(@val5, $msg5) if @val5;
printmsg(@val6, $msg6) if @val6;

So i wrote the following snippet

for(my $i=1; $i < 6; $i++ ) {
    printmsg(@val$i, $msg$i) if @val$i;
}

It doesn't work and breaks out with errors.

Answer 1

You can't just string variables together like that and get a resulting variable. You COULD evaluate the expression of $msg + i, but it's probably better if you make msg an array and just index: $msg[$i].

Answer 2

Whenever you find yourself postfixing variable names with an integer index, realize that you should have used an array instead:

my @msgs = ('msg1', 'msg2', ..., 'msg6');
my @vals = ( [ @val1 ], [ @val2 ], ..., [ @val6 ] );

See also the FAQ How can I use a variable as a variable name?

You should read the entire FAQ list at least once a year.

Update: I purposefully left symbolic references out of my answer because they are unnecessary and likely very harmful in the context of your question. For more information, see Why it's stupid to 'use a variable as a variable name'?, part 2 and part 3 by mjd.