How do I initialize values in a hash without a loop?

Question

I am trying to figure out a way to initialize a hash without having to go through a loop. I was hoping to use slices for that, but it doesn't seem to produce the expected results.

Consider the following code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash = ();
$hash{currency_symbol} = 'BRL';
$hash{currency_name} = 'Real';
print Dumper(%hash);

This does work as expect and produce the following output:

$VAR1 = 'currency_symbol';
$VAR2 = 'BRL';
$VAR3 = 'currency_name';
$VAR4 = 'Real';

When I try to use slices as follows, it doesn't work:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash = ();
my @fields = ('currency_symbol', 'currency_name');
my @array = ('BRL','Real');
@hash{@array} = @fields x @array;

The output is:

$VAR1 = 'currency_symbol';
$VAR2 = '22';
$VAR3 = 'currency_name';
$VAR4 = undef;

There is obviously something wrong.

So my question would be: what is the most elegant way to initialize a hash given two arrays (the keys and the values)?

Answer 1

use strict;
use warnings;  # Must-haves

# ... Initialize your arrays

my @fields = ('currency_symbol', 'currency_name');
my @array = ('BRL','Real');

# ... Assign to your hash

my %hash;
@hash{@fields} = @array;