passing arguments by name instead of position for functions

[Matt Zagrabelny]

Hello,

I have a variety of hashes that have similar content:

$h = {

    'foo1' => 'bar',

    [...]

    'foo99' => 'baz',

    'foo100' => 'h',

}

$g = {

    'foo1' => 'bar',

    [...]

    'foo99' => 'baz',

    'foo100' => 'g',

}

I'd like to have a function or similar mechanism:

$h = helper_module::get_hash_defaults()

but be able to override various keys/parameters in the get_hash_defaults function:

$h = helper_module::get_hash_defaults(

    'foo100' => 'h',

)

$h = helper_module::get_hash_defaults(

    'foo100' => 'g',

)

but functions only take parameters by position.

Does anyone have any clever hacks I could try to mimic passing arguments by name?

Thanks for any help!

-m

[Jesse Reynolds]

Hi Matt, 

Is your aim to avoid the duplication? If so, perhaps you could just use simple composition, eg: 

$defaults = {

  'foo1' => 'bar',

  #[...]

  'foo99' => 'baz',

}

$h = $defaults + {

  'foo100' => 'h',

}

$g = $defaults + {

  'foo100' => 'g',

}

If you need more flexibility though, hiera might be the nicer way to achieve it. 

Cheers

Jesse