I have a sub that takes in a reference of a multidimensional array and processes it.
The problem is, the underlying array may be 2D or 3D, or a 2D array with up to two fields that is a reference to a 1D array.
Is it possible to detect the dimension of the array, so that I can handle all these cases within this sub? Or I have to write several subs to handle all different dimensions?
As in most dynamic languages, arrays in Perl are only one-dimensional. You usually represent a two-dimensional array by having each element of the array be a reference to another array - so you effectively have an array of arrays. If each element of an inner array is also a reference to a third array, then you effectively have a three-dimensional array.
If you don't know ahead of time how deep your array goes, you can use the ref function to check an element to see if it's a reference; if it is, then dereference it to get another dimension out of your array and process it. If not, then expect it to be a leaf element of the array.
One potential gotcha is that Perl doesn't enforce any kind of structure on the arrays; different elements can be different types. Which means subarrays could exist alongside simple numbers or strings in the same array. It'd be up to the array-construction code to make sure that a single array doesn't mix and match dimensionalities.
