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

Thanks everyone for the responses! All three of the responses were helpful in finally coming up with my solution. I decided to go with the Term::Choose module, (Thanks sid_com for the idea). My menu structure was different than you had originally suggested and it took quite a while of scratching my head to figure out how to make it do exactly what I wanted. Hopefully this solution will help someone else out who encounters a similar problem.

I constructed the menu as shown below:

(I have replaced my variables with more general names so it is easier to follow)

    #!/usr/bin/perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;
    use Term::Choose qw(choose);

    my @CHOICES1 = ('A','B','C');
    my @CHOICES2 = ('1','2','3');
    my @CHOICES3 = ('BLUE','YELLOW','GREEN');

    # function to use the choices
    sub some_function {
        print "THIS IS SOME FUNCTION!\n";
        print "Choice 1 is $_[0]\n";
        print "Choice 2 is $_[1]\n";
        print "Choice 3 is $_[2]\n";
        print "Have a nice day! :)\n";
    }

    sub main() {

        # clear the screen
        # (for some reason the build in screen clear 
        # for the module was not working for me)
        system ('cls');

        # create menu object
        my $menu = new Term::Choose();

        # menu 1
        for (;;) {
            my $choice1 = $menu->choose(
                [@CHOICES1, undef],
                {
                    prompt => 'Select a choice1:',
                    undef  => 'Exit',
                    layout => 3,
                }
            );
            last if ! $choice1;

            # submenu 1
            for (;;) {
                my $choice2 = $menu->choose(
                    [@CHOICES2, undef],
                    {
                        prompt => 'Select a choice2:',
                        undef  => 'Back',
                        layout => 3,
                    }
                );
                last if ! $choice2;

                # submenu2
                for (;;) {
                    my $choice3 = $menu->choose(
                        [@CHOICES3, undef],
                        {
                             prompt => 'Select a choice3:',
                            undef  => 'Back',
                            layout => 3,
                        }
                    );
                    last if ! $choice3;

                    # function operating on all choices
                    some_function($choice1, $choice2, $choice3);
                    return;
                }
            }
        }
    }

    main();

I'm still very new to object oriented Perl so this took a very long time to figure out and it might not be perfect, but it gets the job done. Let me know if you have any ideas or improvements!