On Tuesday, Sep 10, 2002, at 07:53 US/Pacific, Mike Singleton wrote:
> Something like this then??? > === Start === > use constant JOBSTART => 'SNBJH_3203J'; > # Condense start > use constant CONDSTART => 'SNBJH_3403'; > # Job end > use constant JOBEND => 'SNBJH_3211J'; > # Condense end > use constant CONDEND => 'SNBJH_3401J'; > # Job cancelled > use constant JOBCANC => 'SNBJH_3258J'; > # Job fail > use constant JOBFAIL => '-1'; > # Volsers used > use constant VOLUSED => 'SNBJH_3320J'; > > my %statcode = ( > JOBEND => 0 > CONDEND => 0 > JOBFAIL => -1 > JOBCANC => -2 > ); > === End=== you need ',' after the entries above.... [..] mike I guess a part of the questions are a) how are you planning to access your hash %statcode b) how dynamic does the reltationship between the 'variables' you want to have as constant have to be to the stuff you 'stuff' into the hash? eg: what do you expect of the following code fragment assuming that we used your hash and constants.... my $bob = JOBEND ; if ( exists ($statcode{ JOBEND } ) ){ print " have : $bob $statcode{ JOBEND }\n"; } else { print "not in play"; } I think what you may really want is my %key_words = ( SNBJH_3203J => 'JOBSTART', SNBJH_3403 => 'CONDSTART', SNBJH_3211J => 'JOBEND', SNBJH_3401J => 'CONDEND', SNBJH_3258J => 'JOBCANC', SNBJH_3320J => 'VOLUSED', -1 => 'JOBFAIL', ); so that you can do my $key = some_function(); if ( exists($key_word{$key}) && exists(statcode{ $key_word{$key}) ) { return($statcode{$key_word{$key}); }else{ # either this is a keyword we do not know about # eg it is not in our %stat_code # OR we have a key returned that is not in our %keywords # and need to do some more processing } ciao drieux --- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]