Acme::Hyperindex 0.12

Acme::Hyperindex is a Perl module to look deep into structures using a list of indexes.

SYNOPSIS

use strict;
use Acme::Hyperindex;

my @struct = (
{ j_psi => [qw( eta_prime phi kaon )] },
{ j_psi => [qw( selectron down tau_sneutrino )] },
{ j_psi => [qw( upsilon gluino photino )] }
);

print @struct[[ 2, j_psi, 1 ]], "n"; ### Prints gluino
my $row = @struct[[ 1, j_psi ]]; ### Row contains [qw( selectron down tau_sneutrino )]

When you use dynamic datastructures, the perl index syntax may not be felxible enough. A little examle:

my @struct = (
{
pion => [
[qw(strange j_psi positron)],
[qw(down_squark electron gluino)],
],
w_plus_wino => [
[qw(neutralino tau kaon)],
[qw(charm_squark photino strange_squark)]
],
},
);

Now to get to the kaon particle, normally we use:

my $particle = $struct[0]->{w_plus_wino}->[2];
-- or better --
my $particle = $struct[0]{w_plus_wino}[2];

But what if you dont know how deep your datastructure is at compile time? Course this is doable:

my $particle = @struct;
$particle = $particle->[$_] for qw(0 pion 2);

Two problems here: Perl will tell you Not an ARRAY reference once we try to index in the hash on pion with this array indexing syntax. Its damn ugly and looks complicated.

So Acme::Hyperindex lets you index arbitrary deep into data structures:

my $particle = @struct[[ 0, pion, 2 ]];
-- or even --
my $particle = @struct[[ @indexes ]];
-- or --
my $particle = @struct[[ get_index() ]];
-- or --
my $particle = @struct[[ $particleindexes[[ 3, 42 ]] ]];

Acme::Hyperindex now also lets you index on scalars, arrays and hashes:

$struct[[ ... ]];
@struct[[ ... ]];
%struct[[ ... ]];

And lists ary auto-derefed in list context:

my $struct = [ [qw(a b c)], [qw(d e f)] ];

my $foo = $struct[[ 0 ]]; # $foo contains a ref to qw(a b c)
my @foo = $struct[[ 0 ]]; # @foo contains qw(a b c)