I've created an array of anonymous hashes to act as structures to hold data from some files I'm working on parsing. For various reasons, I need to add an element into the middle of the array that is the same as the one before it except for some minor modifications. I'd been doing this with:

my $new_element = $hash_array[$index];
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Of course, I've noticed that this just makes $new_element a reference to the same anonymous hash. What is the best way to make $new_element be a reference to an anonymous hash with the same data as the anonymous hash in $hash_array$index, so that I may splice it in?

(Side question: When using splice and replacing a run of 0 length, are new elements put at the offset position, or after?)

Thanks in advance, wise Monks.