How can I build a simple menu in Perl?

Question

I\'m working on a Perl script that requires some basic menu functionality. Ultimately I would like each menu to have a few options and then the option to either return to th

Answer 1

Following is one approach. Each choice has an associated subroutine. When the choice is made, the corresponding subroutine is called. Here I am using anonymous subroutines but you can also use references to named subroutines.

use warnings; use strict;

sub menu {
  my $args = shift;
  my $title = $args->{title};
  my $choices = $args->{choices};

  while (1) {
    print "--------------------\n";
    print "$title\n";
    print "--------------------\n";
    for (my $i = 1; $i <= scalar(@$choices); $i++) {
      my $itemHeading = $choices->[$i-1][0];
      print "$i.\t $itemHeading\n";
    }
    print "\n?: ";
    my $i = ; chomp $i;
    if ($i && $i =~ m/[0-9]+/ && $i <= scalar(@$choices)) {
      &{$choices->[$i-1][1]}();
    } else {
      print "\nInvalid input.\n\n";
    }
  }
}

my $menus = {};
$menus = {
  "1" => {
    "title" => "Menu 1 header",
    "choices" => [
       [ "Choice 1" , sub { print "Choice 1 selected"; }],
       [ "Choice 2" , sub { print "Choice 2 selected"; }],
       [ "Menu 2" , sub { menu($menus->{2}); }],
       [ "Exit" , sub { exit; }],
    ],
  },
 "2" => {
    "title" => "Menu 2 header",
    "choices" => [
       [ "Choice 3" , sub { print "Choice 3 selected"; }],
       [ "Choice 4" , sub { print "Choice 4 selected"; }],
       [ "Menu 1" , sub { menu($menus->{1}); }],
       [ "Exit" , sub { exit; }],
  ],
  },
};

menu($menus->{1});