Dynamic variable names and hash keys - regex

Question

My script written in Perl parse text output of a command which is structured like this:
Controller information
Controller Status : Optimal
Logical device information
Logical Device number 1
Logical Status : Optimal
Logical Device number 2
Logical Status : Optimal
Parser should fill multidimentional structure:
{
"controller": {
"Controller Status": "Optimal"
}
"logical": [
{
"Logical Status": "Optimal"
},
{
"Logical Status": "Optimal"
}
]
}
I try parsing using dynamic variables:
foreach (#lines) {
$variable = "info{controller}" if (m/Controller information/);
$variable = "info{logical}[$1]" if (m/Logical Device number (\d+)/);
${$variable}{1} = $2 if (m/\s+(.*?)\s+:\s(.*)$/);
}
In this case header will set hash key corresponding to the topic and all following parameters will be put into chosen key.
The first problem is that dynamic ${$variable} will not work if $variable contain any hash or array keys. Is there a way to make dynamic variables work with hash keys inside?
The second problem is that dynamic variables are called "always-a-bad-idea", and I wonder if there is short but effective way to build parsing function without dynamic variables?

Answer 1

Use Data::DeepAccess (or Data::Diver with a bit different interface).
Note that I used $1 - 1 as the index, otherwise the first element with index 0 under logical was undef.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::DeepAccess qw{ deep_set };
my %info;
my #where;
while (<DATA>) {
#where = ('controller') if /Controller information/;
#where = ('logical', {index => $1 - 1}) if /Logical Device number (\d+)/;
deep_set(\%info, #where, "$1", "$2") if m/\s+(.*?)\s+:\s(.*)$/;
}
use Data::Dumper; print Dumper \%info;
__DATA__
Controller information
Controller Status : Optimal
Logical device information
Logical Device number 1
Logical Status : Optimal
Logical Device number 2
Logical Status : Optimal
Or, use references:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
my %info;
my $where;
while (<DATA>) {
$where = \$info{controller} if /Controller information/;
$where = \$info{logical}[ $1 - 1 ] if /Logical Device number (\d+)/;
$$where->{$1} = $2 if m/\s+(.*?)\s+:\s(.*)$/;
}
...