Trouble converting array to hash - arrays

Question

I have an array where elements of the array have values that are separated by tabs.
For example:
client_name \t owner \t date \t port_number.
I need to convert that into a hash so it can be dumped into a MySQL database.
Something like:
my %foo = ();
$foo{date} = "111208";
$foo{port} = "2222";
$foo{owner} = "ownername";
$foo{name} = "clientname";
The problem I have is that there are duplicate client names but they exist on different port numbers. If I convert it directly to a hash using client_name as a key it will delete duplicate client names. The MySQL table is indexed based on {name} and {port}.
Is there any way I can convert this into a hash without losing duplicate client names?

Answer 1

You would go through your file, build up the hash like you've done, then push a reference to that hash onto an array. Something like:
foreach my $line ( #lines ) {
# Make your %foo hash.
push #clients, \%foo;
}
Then afterwards, when you're inserting into your DB, you just iterate through the elements in #clients:
foreach my $client ( #clients ) {
$date = $client->{'date'};
...
}
Edit: If you want to turn this into a hash of hashes, then as you loop through the list of lines, you'd do something like:
foreach my $line ( #lines ) {
# Make your %foo hash.
$clients{$foo{'port'}} = \%foo;
}
Then you'll have a hash of hashes using the port number as the key.

Answer 2

Why not just store it in a list (array)?
my #records = ();
while (my $line = <INFILE>) {
chomp $line;
my #fields = split /\t/ $line;
push #records => { date => $fields[2],
name => $fields[0],
port => $fields[3],
owner => $fields[1] };
}
for my $record (#records) {
$insert_query->execute (%$record);
}

Answer 3

my #record_list;
while ( <$generic_input> ) {
my $foo = {};
#$foo{ qw<date port owner name> } = split /\t/;
push #record_list, \%foo;
}
As a "pipeline" you could do this:
use List::MoreUtils qw<pairwise>;
my #fields = qw<date port owner name>;
my #records
= map {; { pairwise { $a => $b } #fields, #{[ split /\t/ ]}}}
<$input>
;