Where is my associative array and how do I access it using Perl DBI?

Question

I'm working with perl, and using DBI. Up to now, I've been using ->fetchall_arrayref to get the results of a database query, and just accessing the array by numeric keys. However, I much prefer to be able to access records by the field names (associative fetch) than numeric.

How do I do this, and what is the correct syntax for accessing the keys?

I would prefer something like:

$data[0]['name']

Instead of:

$data[0][1]

---

Working Solution

my %data;
@{$data{$id}}{('name')} = 'something';

Answer 1

Read the DBI docs. Particularly, fetchall_hashref.

And you should also learn Perl syntax, as it's not the same as PHP.

Answer 2

If you do fetchall_hashref() then you get the hash you are looking for. The keys will be the field names from the database. I am a little late, and Joe got it, but it will be.

$data->{0}->{'field'};

Answer 3

You can use selectall_arrayref for this. Here's example from the DBI manpage:

You may often want to fetch an array of rows where each row is stored as a hash. That can be done simple using:

  my $emps = $dbh->selectall_arrayref(
      "SELECT ename FROM emp ORDER BY ename",
      { Slice => {} }
  );
  foreach my $emp ( @$emps ) {
      print "Employee: $emp->{ename}\n";
  }