Okay, I am working on a function that inserts a row into a MySQL table. Now, I am trying to make this thing slightly intelligent. So I have a hash that looks like the following:

my %TABLES = (      # Hash identifying one database
  'users' => [      # Hash keys are the database's tables
    'username',
    'password',     # Columns of the table in an array
    'first_name',
    'email_address',
    'rating'
  ]
);
[download]

Next I have a subroutine in my module that is called like the following:

$handle->insert (
  -table        =>  "users",
  -primary_key  =>  "username",
  -values       =>  { 
    username      =>  "mt2k",
    first_name    =>  "Nathan",
    email_address =>  'email@example.net',
    password      =>  crypt("password", $salt),
    rating        =>  10
  }
);
[download]

Next comes the part I am having problems with. Here is a sample part that is close to that of my subroutine:

sub insert {
  my ($self, %q) = @_;

  # Set up placeholders
  my $ph = join ', ', ('?') x values %{$q{'-values'}};

  # Prepare the query for the database
  my $sth = $self->{DB}->prepare(
    "INSERT INTO $q{'-table'} VALUES($ph)"
  );

  # This is the line that causes problems. Read below for more.
  $sth->execute(values %{$q{'-values'}});
[download]

If you didn't catch on immediately, the problem lies in the fact that I am supplying the values of the hash to execute(). This means they are not in the correct order that MySQL requires them to be in. This is where the %TABLES hash comes in. This hash contains the arrays that hold the correct order in which the values must be passed as placeholders in the execute() statement.

So what I need to do is take the values of %{$q{'-values'}} and return them sorted in the correct order as identified by %TABLES.

I hope I've been clear enough in order to recieve some answers to this question which has perplexed me. Thanks in advance!

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