Perl – Are quotes around hash keys a good practice in Perl

hashperlquotes

Is it a good idea to quote keys when using a hash in Perl?

I am working on an extremely large legacy Perl code base and trying to adopt a lot of the best practices suggested by Damian Conway in Perl Best Practices. I know that best practices are always a touchy subject with programmers, but hopefully I can get some good answers on this one without starting a flame war. I also know that this is probably something that a lot of people wouldn't argue over due to it being a minor issue, but I'm trying to get a solid list of guidelines to follow as I work my way through this code base.

In the Perl Best Practices book by Damian Conway, there is this example which shows how alignment helps legibility of a section of code, but it doesn't mention (anywhere in the book that I can find) anything about quoting the hash keys.

$ident{ name   } = standardize_name($name);
$ident{ age    } = time - $birth_date;
$ident{ status } = 'active';

Wouldn't this be better written with quotes to emphasize that you are not using bare words?

$ident{ 'name'   } = standardize_name($name);
$ident{ 'age'    } = time - $birth_date;
$ident{ 'status' } = 'active';

Best Answer

Without quotes is better. It's in {} so it's obvious that you are not using barewords, plus it is both easier to read and type (two less symbols). But all of this depends on the programmer, of course.

Related Solutions

Perl – What’s the safest way to iterate through the keys of a Perl hash

The rule of thumb is to use the function most suited to your needs.

If you just want the keys and do not plan to ever read any of the values, use keys():

foreach my $key (keys %hash) { ... }

If you just want the values, use values():

foreach my $val (values %hash) { ... }

If you need the keys and the values, use each():

keys %hash; # reset the internal iterator so a prior each() doesn't affect the loop
while(my($k, $v) = each %hash) { ... }

If you plan to change the keys of the hash in any way except for deleting the current key during the iteration, then you must not use each(). For example, this code to create a new set of uppercase keys with doubled values works fine using keys():

%h = (a => 1, b => 2);

foreach my $k (keys %h)
{
  $h{uc $k} = $h{$k} * 2;
}

producing the expected resulting hash:

(a => 1, A => 2, b => 2, B => 4)

But using each() to do the same thing:

%h = (a => 1, b => 2);

keys %h;
while(my($k, $v) = each %h)
{
  $h{uc $k} = $h{$k} * 2; # BAD IDEA!
}

produces incorrect results in hard-to-predict ways. For example:

(a => 1, A => 2, b => 2, B => 8)

This, however, is safe:

keys %h;
while(my($k, $v) = each %h)
{
  if(...)
  {
    delete $h{$k}; # This is safe
  }
}

All of this is described in the perl documentation:

% perldoc -f keys
% perldoc -f each

Perl – In Perl, how to create a hash whose keys come from a given array

%hash = map { $_ => 1 } @array;

It's not as short as the "@hash{@array} = ..." solutions, but those ones require the hash and array to already be defined somewhere else, whereas this one can take an anonymous array and return an anonymous hash.

What this does is take each element in the array and pair it up with a "1". When this list of (key, 1, key, 1, key 1) pairs get assigned to a hash, the odd-numbered ones become the hash's keys, and the even-numbered ones become the respective values.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Perl – What’s the safest way to iterate through the keys of a Perl hash

Perl – In Perl, how to create a hash whose keys come from a given array

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