But back to your problem: suppose you did this:

%sample    = 
(
'login' =>["Login", 75, 'textfield', 'login'],
'last' =>["Last Name", 75, 'textfield', 'last'],
'first' =>["First Name", 70, 'textfield', 'first']
);
[download]

%sample=
(
'login' =>{name=>"Login", width=>75, method=> 'textfield', field=>'log
+in'},
'last' =>{name=>"Last Name", width=> 75, method=>'textfield', field=>'
+last'],
'first' =>{name=>"First Name", width=>70, method=>'textfield', field=>
+'first'}
);
[download]

print $q->$sample{'last'}{'method'} ($sample{'last'}{'field'});
[download]

Gary Blackburn
Trained Killer

Okay, I understand your point about hash of hashes. So,...

%sample=
(
'login' =>
  {name=>"Login", 
   width=>75, 
   method=> 'textfield', 
   field=>'login',
   size=>'10',
   max=>'8'
  }, etc...
);
[download]

Now, to generate the <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="login" VALUE="" SIZE=10 MAXLENGTH=8> HTML code, I would do that by:

$q = new CGI;

print $q->$sample{'login'}{'method'}->($sample{'login'}{'field'},
            $sample{'login'}{'size'},
            $sample{'login'}{'max'});

or do I need to do the following:

print $q->$sample{'login'}{'method'}->(-name=>$sample{'login'}{'field'
+},
            -size=>$sample{'login'}{'size'},
            -max=>$sample{'login'}{'max'});
[download]

Ultimately, I want to be able to do something like the following.

@report = ('last','first','phone','payment');

foreach (@report)
   {
   print qq|<tr><td width="$sample{$_}{'width'}">$sample{$_}{'name'}|;
   print $q->$sample{$_}{'method'}->(-name=>$sample{$_}{'field'},
            -size=>$sample{$_}{'size'},
            -max=>$sample{$_}{'max'});
  print qq|</td></tr>|;
   }
[download]


--
Filmo the Klown

$a = 'textfield';
$q->$a('lastname');
[download]

is it possible to do the following then:

@a = ('textfield','lastname','Bob',20,15);
$q->$a[0[(-name=>$a[1],-default=>$a[2],-size=>$a[3],-max=>$a[4]);
[download]

or even better

@a = ('textfield',qq|-name=>'lastname'|, qq|-default=>'Bob'|, etc.);
$q->$a[0]($a[1],$a[2],$a[3], etc...)
[download]

--
Filmo the Klown

%sample = 
{
  'short' =>{name=>"Job ID",
         width=>40,
         cgi=>{method=>'textfield',field=>'short',size=>15,max=>10},
         div=>"center"},
       
  'name' =>{name=>"Job Name",
        width=>150,
        cgi=>{method=>'textfield',field=>'name',size=>35}}
}; 

foreach (keys %sample)
    {
    $method = $sample{$_}{'cgi'}{'method'};
    # if method doesn't exist, you get undef sub error in CGI pm
    if ($method)
      {
      print $q->$method(-name=>$job{$_}{'cgi'}{'field'},
                -default=>$job{$_}{'cgi'}{'default'},
                -size=>$job{$_}{'cgi'}{'size'},
                -maxlength=>$job{$_}{'cgi'}{'max'}
               );
      }
    print "\n";
    }
[download]

Assuming that $q is a blessed CGI reference, $q->textfield() (with the proper arguments) would return an HTML text input field, which you would normally print to stdout as part of a web page.

If you're trying to retrieve query paramters, you want to use something like:

$var = $q->param('lastname');
[download]

Update:

Ok, I think I misunderstood what you were aiming for. MrNobo1024 hit the nail on the head.

May I ask why you are trying to do this?

There might be a better way to do what your trying to accomplish.

my $name = 'Ben Kittrell';
$name=~s/^(.+)\s(.).+$/\L$1$2/g;
my $nick = 'tha' . $name . 'sta';
[download]

I've set up a hash which contains information about individual column in a mySQL file. The hash contains the mySQL column name, the "plain text" column name, default column widths for tables, and the default param. Since there are hundreds of different mySQl columns, I don't want to create the CGI param unless that particular column is needed. When generating a report, the columns desired are entered into an array, that array is then stepped through, with each $_ acting as the key to the %hash, pulling all the relevant information as needed about any particular column. example

%sample    = 
(
'login' =>["Login", 75, qq|textfield('login')|],
'last' =>["Last Name", 75, qq|textfield('last')|],
'first' =>["First Name", 70, qq|textfield('first')|],
'address' =>["Address", 140, qq|textarea('address','',2,40)|]
 );
[download]

Thus to create a table of just 'last' and 'first', I could reference the correct element of the hash and retreive the correct column name, the default width, and the cgi param to pass in order to create the correct form element. Additionally, if I'm generating a report, all I would need to pull is the column name and size, etc.

I could replace the qq|textfield('xxxx')| with $q->textfield('xxx'), which does work, however, I don't want to generate all those cgi params unless they are needed.
--
Filmo the Klown