Read MongoDB array into perl and walk data - arrays

Question

I am trying to capture an array from my MongoDB database into my Perl script and read each element. This is something that I thought would be simple, but for some dumb reason it is kicking my rearend.
My MongoDB Document (in part)
"members" : [
"5713b2d46d210e51836de591",
"me",
"you",
"him",
"her"
],
Perl code
$document = $database -> get_collection('my_collection')->find_one({_id => $oid});
#members = $document->{'members'};
print Dumper #members;
foreach $member (#members)
{
print "member = $member\n";
}
exit;
Output I am getting:
$VAR1 = [
'5713b2d46d210e51836de591',
'me',
'you',
'him',
'her'
];
member = ARRAY(0x47fa398)
Looking at the last line I see that I am being passed a reference to the array instead of the values. So I tried accessing via $member[0] or $member[1] but that just returns the same ARRAY(0x*****).
PLEASE HELP, I am sure it is something stupid.
Thanks!
Steven

Answer 1

I'm not familiar with Mongo, but looking at the output, your #members array has one element - an array ref (as you suspected). Since Mongo is returning an arrayref, you're best to store that in a scalar and access it like so;
my $members = $document->{'members'};
print "second item returned is: ", $members->[1];
print "The complete contents:\n";
for my $item ( #$members ) {
print " ", $item;
}