Accessing data within a Perl variable

Question

I dumped out a Perl variable called $prefs and got this:

$VAR1 = bless( {
                 'USERID' => 1286,
                 'PREFS' => {
                              '1' => {
                                       'VALUE' => 1,
                                       'OTHERS_POST' => 1,
                                       'CLIENTS_POST' => 1,
                                       'ASSIGNED_TASKS' => 1
                                     }
                            },
                 'dbh' => bless( {
                                   '_sth' => bless( {}, 'DBI::st' ),
                                   '_dbh' => bless( {}, 'DBI::db' )
                                 }, 'Taskman::DB' )
               }, 'USystems::UserPrefs' );

I'm pretty new to Perl, and I was wondering if someone can break down on whether or not it is possible to access specific data within this variable.

Like if I wanted to do an if statement such as

if (OTHERS_POST == 1) {
      // code }

How would I get to the actual OTHERS_POST inside the $prefs variable

The USystems::UserPrefs class is not one that I can find on CPAN, but I'd recommend trying the command perldoc USystems::UserPrefs to find any documentation on the class. Alternatively you can follow Gingi's advice, do an end-run around the class and hope that it's implementation never ever changes... — tjd
– tjd, Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 17:28
You would get a proper answer if you showed the USystems/UserPrefs.pm module file — Borodin
– Borodin, Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 19:05

Gingi · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-01 17:16:57Z

1

$prefs->{PREFS}->{1}->{OTHERS_POST};

answered Jul 1, 2014 at 17:16

Gingi

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3 Comments

ysth Over a year ago

note that this is bypassing the class's encapsulation; $prefs is a USystems::UserPrefs object; it would be preferable (pun intended) to use whatever method(s) that class provides

friedo Over a year ago

This answer is probably wrong, even though it will work, because USystems::UserPrefs may have an accessor method which exposes this data. (But there's no way for us to know, since it seems to be a proprietary module in your system.)

Gingi Over a year ago

Yes, if a reference is a blessed object, a proper method should expose it in a more portable way. But this is not a CPAN question :) and for beginning Perl it shows how to access nested structures (at least nested hashes).

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