Perl/Mysql: Extracting entries from database

How can I get the data in a way which isn't field position specific?

[Allen]

Hi all,

Another Perl/MySQL question for you:

How can I extract records from a database without knowing the positions of the fields, only the field names.

Currently I use:

 $sth = $dbh->prepare ("SELECT * FROM country ORDER BY name ASC");
 $sth->execute ();

 while ( ($id, $name) = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
 push @countries, { id => "$id", name => "$name" };
 }

 $sth->finish ();
 $dbh->disconnect ();

But, as you can see, it requires me to know the order the fields are in.

I did try getting to data into hashes using fetchrow_hashref a while back, but couldn't get it to work.

Thanks in advance,

Allen

[Allen]

Had another look through my books last night and found out why my method for using fetchrow_hashref wasn't working - it was a simple typo :/

In case anyone's wondering, here's how o do a fetchrow_hashref:

while ( $country = $sth->fetchrow_hashref()) {
 push @countries, { id => "$country->{id}", name => "$country->{name}" };
}

Allen

[Brett_Tabke]

That's what drives me nuts about dbi programming. I sure wish I could find a set of free routines that skipped dbi and used pure sockets. I'll handle the escaping and what not...