NAME

       Tie::Hash::Regex - Match hash keys using Regular Expressions

SYNOPSIS

         use Tie::Hash::Regex;
         my %h;

         tie %h, 'Tie::Hash::Regex';

         $h{key}   = 'value';
         $h{key2}  = 'another value';
         $h{stuff} = 'something else';

         print $h{key};  # prints 'value'
         print $h{2};    # prints 'another value'
         print $h{'^s'}; # prints 'something else'

         print tied(%h)->FETCH('k'); # prints 'value' and 'another value'

         delete $h{k};   # deletes $h{key} and $h{key2};

       or (new! improved!)

         my %h : Regex;

DESCRIPTION

       Someone asked on Perlmonks if a hash could do fuzzy matches on keys - this is the result.

       If there's no exact match on the key that you pass to the hash, then the key is treated as
       a regex and the first matching key is returned. You can force it to leap straight into the
       regex checking by passing a qr'ed regex into the hash like this:

         my $val = $h{qr/key/};

       "exists" and "delete" also do regex matching. In the case of "delete" all values matching
       your regex key will be deleted from the hash.

       One slightly strange thing. Obviously if you give a hash a regex key, then it's possible
       that more than one key will match (consider $h{qw/./}).  It might be nice to be able to do
       stuff like:

         my @vals = $h{$pat};

       to get all matching values back. Unfortuately, Perl knows that a given hash key can only
       ever return one value and so forces scalar context on the "FETCH" call when using the tied
       interface. You can get round this using the slightly less readable:

         my @vals = tied(%h)->FETCH($pat);

   ATTRIBUTE INTERFACE
       From version 0.06, you can use attributes to define your hash as being tied to
       Tie::Hash::Regex. You'll need to install the module Attribute::Handlers. Simply declare
       your hash using the attribute syntax:

           my %hash :Regex;

METHODS

   FETCH
       Get a value from the hash. If there isn't an exact match try a regex match.

   EXISTS
       See if a key exists in the hash. If there isn't an exact match try a regex match.

   DELETE
       Delete a key from the hash. If there isn't an exact match try a regex match.

AUTHOR

       Dave Cross <dave@mag-sol.com>

       Thanks to the Perlmonks <http://www.perlmonks.org> for the original idea and to Jeff
       "japhy" Pinyan for some useful code suggestions.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2001-8, Magnum Solutions Ltd.  All Rights Reserved.

LICENSE

       This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

       perl(1).

       perltie(1).

       Tie::RegexpHash(1)